


Meanwhile in Winters

by katsudonnnnnnnnnn



Category: Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound
Genre: Bullying, Canon Gay Character, First Meetings, Forbidden Love, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Star-crossed, gay couples, i mean i don't think pokey went back home after giygas was defeated lol, kind of au i guess, lots of headcanons here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24919327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katsudonnnnnnnnnn/pseuds/katsudonnnnnnnnnn
Summary: In this story that I actually wrote way back in 2015 and never published the full version of anywhere, I explore what was happening to Tony- and Jeff too- before, during, and after the events of Earthbound. Tony moves to Winters, makes a new friend at his new school and realizes he likes him as more than a friend.Earthbound is made by Nintendo, and I don't own these characters.
Relationships: Jeff Andonuts/Tony
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the details might be off from the game- if any of my headcanons go directly against what's portrayed in the game, I'm sorry in advance! Also please let me know if I made any typos so I can fix them.

There was no question about it- no hows or whys to it. I’ve known my entire life I liked other boys instead of girls. I really didn’t realize it at any point in time; I’ve just known. I never really noticed girls the way my other guy friends did, and I couldn’t figure out why they always made fun of me whenever I said that a guy was cute- but the tone in their voices when they asked, “What the heck?! Tony, are you gay?!?” made it sound like something bad, so I always would quickly recant and tell them I was joking. My parents had never treated me like I was any different before. They acted like a boy who liked other boys was the most normal thing in the world- and so did I, up until something happened that changed everything.  
It was at my friend’s birthday party, in fourth grade, that the truth had officially come out. We were playing Truth or Dare- and my friend dared his twin sister to kiss me. The other guys were excited- because this was going to mean I was the first of them to have kissed a girl- and cheering while she got up off of the floor and walked in my direction. When she knelt down in front of me and puckered up to kiss me, I actually leaned backwards to avoid her lips and screamed in disgust. But she didn’t take no for an answer. She grabbed me by the shoulders in a death grip- and kissed me before I could squirm away. I tried to pull away, but she was holding me too tightly. Looking back, that kiss probably only lasted 5 seconds, but to me, it felt like a hundred years before she finally let go of me. I seized my opportunity and broke free of her kiss at the first chance I got. I wiped my lips on my sleeve, quickly got off of the floor, and nearly started crying when I noticed the other guys were laughing at me. I tried to tell them that it wasn’t funny, that I just didn’t like girls, but they didn’t listen. From there, the jeering at my reaction to the kiss degenerated to a slew of homophobic slurs and rude jokes. I left the party in tears and vowed to never associate with them again. But it was too late. My “friends” had told every single person at school and probably the rest of Fourside the next day- even the kindergarteners. I couldn’t walk through the halls without hearing at least one person not-so-surreptitiously whisper an insulting word that rhymes with “maggot”, and occasionally, a boy shoving his friend in my face declaring, “He’s gay too! He likes you, Tony! Why don’t you kiss him??” and the friend, more or less, reacting the way I did during that stupid Truth-or-Dare game. Even one of my teachers kind of got in on it! She was going on about career day and she’d told us, “I know it seems like this might not matter until you’re all grown up and moved out of the house and have wives…” and then she turned to look at me- “Or husbands, but this is really something you need to think about…”   
The other kids had exploded in laughter and I started crying as they all hypothesized about which one of them I’d end up marrying.  
I could tell it broke my mom’s heart each time she saw me come home from school crying because someone had thrown my stuff into the garbage cans, or written homophobic insults on my homework folder while I was in the restroom, or whatever my tormentors had decided on that day. Therefore, it must have been a godsend that shortly after 8th grade began, my dad’s accounting business transferred him to Winters, another country north of Eagleland.  
“Tony, you’re absolutely going to love it there,” she’d explained to me while telling me the news. “It’s a little cold, but I know you like cold weather. You’ll be going to the best boarding school there is- Snow Wood! According to a survey I read about, almost 100% of their students go on to one of the top 4 colleges in Winters. But the best part is- the people there are super-polite. It’s going to be a fresh start. Nobody there is going to know who you are, what you’re like- or who you like.” Upon hearing the last sentence, I realized she was right. It was a new start. A second chance for me. No longer would Tony Edison be known as “that gay kid”; but now as “the totally awesome new kid”. That night, I silently thanked my dad’s company for transferring him to Winters, and also my dad for accepting. That night was filled with dreams of what Winters would probably be like. I imagined a paradise filled with fancy houses everywhere and everyone was each other’s friend. I imagined Snow Wood to be an absolutely gorgeous campus, with marble staircases, chandeliers, ornate décor, and bookshelves lining nearly every wall.   
My alarm clock woke me up at 6:00 am again, and I trudged out of bed, realizing that I’d probably still have to go back. When I went downstairs, my parents were already up, drinking coffee and comparing prices of rental moving trucks.   
“You can go back to sleep if you want to, dear,” Mom cooed to me from the table. “We’re going to go to the school and transfer you out today and- you’ll be helping us pack later.” I actually cheered and hugged my mom and dad both. I ran up the stairs at full speed, flopped down onto my bed and sighed contentedly. As of that day, I was free.   
Packing and the other preparations flew by quickly, and the long drive to Winters felt like a breeze.   
It looked almost exactly as beautiful as I’d pictured it. Tall, snow-covered mountains popped up everywhere, and there was not a trace of litter to be found anywhere- unlike in Fourside, where plastic bags, candy wrappers and beer bottles lining the street was not an uncommon occurance. (To anyone from anywhere else, Fourside might look like a beautiful metropolis- urban paradise, from the pristine Monotoli building in the heart of uptown, to the rustic Dinosaur Museum. But if you went further, past the tall buildings and out of the uptown area, Fourside quickly grew drab, sad and kind of dingy. True, there were some people, such as the famous Monotolis, who lived in big, old mansions in the nice part of Fourside, but those people were few and far in between. Most all of us average Joes and Janes lived in the yucky, dirty, depressing part, where there were no longer shiny skyscrapers; but rather blocky, gray buildings, stinky factory smoke and graffiti covering abandoned buildings. Everyone who isn’t from Fourside is almost always extremely surprised to hear that, because on TV they only show the Monotoli building and stuff like that. Therefore everyone thinks that the whole city looks like that!) Most of the buildings here in Winters were futuristic and modern, intermingled with some older, more elaborate structures. The roads were smooth, the houses neat and tidy, and the entire country just seemed to declare, “You have reached utopia.”  
Our house was a simple yellow, one-story, 2-bedroom house that came with a classy flower garden and a magnificent maple tree in the front yard. The backyard was enormous, spanning an area that I’m guessing our entire old apartment in Fourside could have fit in. The inside of the house was just as lovely as the outside, with a place above the fireplace perfect for mounting a TV, a large picture window in the dining room, a kitchen with an island, and an absolutely enormous closet in my room. (It was big enough to where I could probably stack all of my furniture in there, save for my bed, and still have room to lay down on the floor!)  
This was a huge change for me- a good one, though. My life had just gone from terrible to awesome.


	2. Chapter 2

Three weeks later, it was time for me to be registered at Snow Wood Boarding School. Upon reading the brochure, I assumed it would probably be a snooty private school like Monotoli Academy (geez, what the heck did that guy DO to get everything in Fourside named after him? We had the Monotoli Building, Monotoli Boulevard, Monotoli Academy, and the supposedly soon-to-be Geldegarde Monotoli Center for Fine Arts!) where you had to make straight A’s all the time and basically be perfect, and that I was clearly not going to fit in- but once they gave me a tour of the actual building itself, it seemed a little less awkward.   
The school itself looked like it had probably been there as long as Winters had been a country. With its imposing iron gates, faded bricks and fancy windows, it closely resembled the home of –who else?- Geldegarde Monotoli. The clean marble floors of the lobby and pristine walls gave an air of importance right upon arrival, and inside with the classrooms, the floor changed to green carpet; and the classrooms themselves, while small, looked almost like something from a magazine, or maybe from a movie.  
Upon meeting the headmaster- Headmaster Peabody, who seemed boring but at the same time friendly…or at least friendlier than Dr. Martin, the principal of Fourside Intermediate School- I realized that I was all wrong about what I thought Snow Wood would be like.  
I will admit, while Headmaster Peabody was showing me and my parents around the school and explaining everything in the most monotone voice I’d ever heard, I must have looked like a surprised frog. I had been walking around looking at everything, my mouth gaping open in surprise and wonder. This was my first time ever seeing the inside of a boarding school- let alone one this nice- and I was totally floored by the fact that a school could look like this.   
Soon enough, the tour was over, and we were back in the front office, where the green and white banners adorned the walls and a large Winters flag hung over the door to Headmaster Peabody’s office, in its blue and white glory.   
“Well, young man, have you gotten a feel for this place yet?” the headmaster droned, looking at me through his tiny glasses.  
“I…think so…” I stammered. It was just too much all at once. 3 weeks was a long time, but not enough to get used to the sudden, massive influx of gentrification into my life.   
“Good. Shall we go to the dormitories now?” the headmaster asked, gesturing to another set of doors.  
I just nodded. I couldn’t wait to see what the dorms looked like if the rest of the school was this impressive.  
Headmaster Peabody led us through the doors and down a hallway, then up a flight of stairs. The doors to the rooms were all open, most of which had cleaning personnel in them. We stopped in front of a room where a cleaning lady was vacuuming the floor. Inside, there were two beds, already made, a nightstand between them, and a large window on the other side of the room in front of the desk near the dresser. I will admit, it wasn’t quite as fancy as I’d pictured it, but then again, there’s not really much to be said for an unused bedroom. The nicest it can really look when nobody’s actually staying in it is like a room in a high-end hotel, which is exactly how it looked.  
“Isn’t this exciting?” Dad asked, putting his hand on my shoulder. “In just a week, this’ll be where you’re going to be staying…” His voice trailed off at the thought of me being gone.  
“Well, not this exact room necessarily. But yes, one just like it,” the headmaster said, peering over his glasses.  
“Yeah…yeah, it actually is exciting,” I replied.  
“Oh, my, I do believe we’ve spent too long on this little tour…I have a meeting at 4:00 I must prepare for,” Headmaster Peabody said with a sigh. “Anyway, you’ll be starting here at the beginning of the semester, in exactly one week.”  
He led us back to the lobby. After he shook my parents’ hands and mine again, we left to drive back home.


	3. Chapter 3

So here it was. The big day. I stood outside of Snow Wood, with several other students- all of whom were dressed in the same uniforms consisting of a starched white shirt, green slacks, a black tie, a green blazer and penny loafers- and my mom was standing in front of me, fiddling with my bowtie.  
“Now, remember, Tony, this is far different from school back in Fourside. I want you to always give your best effort. And…well, I guess what I’m trying to say is try your best. And don’t forget to have fun!” she said.  
It was a little embarrassing, me being the only kid whose mom hadn’t left yet- until I looked across the courtyard and saw another boy with blonde hair and glasses, whose grandpa or some other old relative was with him. The kid’s grandpa had just removed his glasses and cleaned them by licking his finger and rubbing the lens. The entire time, the old guy seemed to be going on and on about something which bored the boy greatly.  
I knowingly nodded at the boy, smiling, and then turned back to my mom.  
“Well…I guess I should probably go now…” she said, and then gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t forget to write or call or whatever your preferred method of communication with us is, dear.” With that she walked out the gates.   
I looked over at the other boy and saw that his grandpa was still there. Out of sheer boredom, I walked up to him, past a crowd that had gathered when some other boy fell in a mud puddle.   
“…and most importantly, remember the rules I’ve taught you about handling dangerous chemicals, as you will here for science,” his grandpa went on.  
“Um…Hi?” I unsurely said. The boy and the old guy both stopped to look at me.  
It was then that something…strange happened, to say the least. That boy was, without a doubt, one of the most attractive guys I’d ever seen. From his tidy blonde hair with bangs cut straight across, to the shape of his long legs, I couldn’t help but just think, “Wow. I sure hope I get to see him again.” When he locked his beautiful aquamarine eyes on mine, I felt almost like I was going to pass out.  
“Hi,” he said, rather matter-of-factly.  
For a while afterwards, we both stood there awkwardly, staring at each other in silence.  
“I should probably leave now before the traffic gets too bad,” the old guy thought aloud. “Goodbye, Jeffrey. See you at the end of the year.” The old guy turned around and walked out the gates, leaving just me and Jeffrey.  
“Um…so what’s your name?” he asked, nervously kicking the ground and sending up little dust flurries.  
“I’m Tony,” I said.  
“Jeff,” he replied. “It’s...nice to meet you.” He looked out at the street, then at the doors of the school- which still hadn’t opened.  
So we both stood there, waiting for the doors to open. I wanted to keep talking with him, but what would I say?   
I was considering telling him that I was new here and still didn’t know where anything was- in the hopes that Jeff would show me around so we could talk some more- but it was right then that the doors opened and the formerly peaceful assembly of students turned to pure chaos as everybody fought to get through the doors.  
We both got shoved fowards by a group of boys that had gathered behind us- who had just stopped trying to dare each other to eat a bug apparently crawling on the ground- and ran forwards at max speed.  
In the crowd of screaming boys all fighting to get inside and wait some more, I’d gotten separated from Jeff. I made the foolish mistake of stopping and calling out his name before getting accidentally slammed into a wall, with what felt like a bag of bricks hitting me in the stomach.   
It seemed like a million years before it happened, but slowly the crowd started shoving me towards the gym, where we were to be assigned our room numbers and class schedules. Once I’d arrived there, everyone just simply made giant mobs around the tables instead of forming a line like all 32 million signs said to do. Being the only one who decided to patiently wait, it took forever before the giant crowd around the table labeled “Last name: A-H” finally got out of the way.   
The lady at the table thanked me for being the only one so far who’s patiently waited his turn, and asked my name.   
“You’re welcome. Oh- no, I didn’t mean my name’s ‘you’re welcome’! What would my parents be thinking if they named me that?! Ha, ha… no, my name’s Tony Edison,” I said. Would there be no end to the awkwardness?  
“Okay, just let me have a look at the world’s worst designed chart here…ah, it looks like you’ll be staying in 32B with a Mr. Jeffrey Andonuts. I wonder if he’s related to Dr. Steven Andonuts,” she said. “Well, you’d best be on your way. The assembly’s beginning soon!”   
Jeffrey Andonuts? Was that the same Jeff from out in the yard? I wondered this until I arrived at room 32B (which involved climbing a ridiculous amount of stairs) to put my things away. While I was unpacking my suitcase and setting up a picture of me and my parents on the nightstand, the door opened with a click.   
There, in the doorway, stood Jeff. Apparently, Jeffrey Andonuts was, in fact, the guy I’d seen earlier and made a fool out of myself in front of.   
He looked at a tiny index card in his hand and walked into the room. “You’re…ah…Tony Edison, right?” he asked.  
“That’s right,” I replied. “Didn’t I see you earlier?”  
“Yes…you did! I sure do hope we’ll have a great year together,” he said.  
“So do I, Jeff…so do I,” I mused, a vision of me and Jeff laying on the floor together in each other’s arms manifesting itself in my head. Upon the fantasy’s appearance, I prayed like crazy that Jeff would never pick up on the fact that I felt a kind of attraction to him, and jumped up off of the bed where I’d been previously folding clothes.  
“Hey! When’s the assembly? Cause we’re really far up here and I think we should just, you know, get an early start going down there so we won’t miss anything,” I blurted out, feeling myself turn a little pink in the face.  
“I can see why you’d say that…let’s go,” he said.  
As we made our way out the door into the hallway, we both reached to close the door. His hand brushed against mine when it found the doorknob.   
The feeling of his soft, warm hand touching mine sent a powerful jolt of energy throughout my entire body. I felt my heartbeat quicken and my cheeks get all hot.  
“Oh, sorry,” Jeff said, and withdrew his hand.   
I slowly closed the door in a daze and turned around to walk down the hall with Jeff.  
“Are you okay, Tony?” he asked.  
“Huh?” I muttered, somewhat snapping out of the strange trance-like state that contact with his hand had just induced.  
“I said, are you okay? Your face looks all flushed now,” he said. “If you want to you can go to the nurse and when you get back I’ll tell you everything that Headmaster Peabody said.”   
The fact that he seemed to care about me so much probably made me blush even more.  
“No, I think I’ll probably be fine,” I answered.  
We walked down the stairs towards the auditorium together in silence. Until, that is, the same rowdy boys from earlier came exploding in from around the corner. We both screamed when we nearly got trampled and lost each other in the crowd. I once again made the mistake of trying to look for Jeff and got body-checked into a wall, then into an unsuspecting coach, and then back into the wall again before I could apologize to the coach for bumping into him. At that point, I couldn’t fight the crowd any longer and was instantly pushed down the hall. Luckily, they also happened to be heading towards the assembly in the auditorium.  
Remarkably, though, the boys ahead of me and behind me quit screaming and shoving each other around when they got within a few meters of the door. They quietly filed into the auditorium with occasional bursts of loud laughter which were quickly stifled. I was relieved that the intimidating presence of the teachers had made it so that I was no longer being shoved around from all directions and could properly walk again.  
In disbelief at how quickly things had gone from peaceful to utter mayhem and then back to peaceful again, I sat down in a random seat- and didn’t even notice who I’d accidentally sat next to.  
A familiar-looking black fedora was thrust into my face, and a voice asked, “Is this your hat?”  
I turned to see who had asked that, and there was Jeff, smiling politely and holding out a hat that looked exactly like mine. It may sound too poetic or whatever, but he had a really, really nice smile. It was meant to be the type of smile a cashier gives you when you walk into a grocery store, but the way his eyes lit up and the perfect cuteness of his freckles seemed to leave it open to interpretation- for me, at least.  
Evidently someone had knocked my hat off in the ruckus in the hall and I wasn’t aware of it. I remained unaware of it even when Jeff presented the hat to me, still thinking I was wearing it.  
“No,” I replied. “but this-“ I reached my hand up to take off my hat and was shocked to find that it wasn’t there. “Actually, yes.” I took my hat from his hands and put it back on.  
Jeff laughed, having clearly mistaken my absentmindedness for trying to be funny. His laugh…sounded like summer, if that makes any sense, and that just reminded me even more that by comparison, I was acting like an alien from outer space who had never interacted with humans before.   
“What exactly are we doing again?” I asked him. “Uh, this is my first year here, so…”  
“So, basically, the headmaster’s going to tell us about the procedures for this year- mostly rules and schedules and…” Jeff continued explaining, but at that point, my mind had somehow ended up wandering. I didn’t really pay attention to what he was saying and instead, alternated between admiring the features of his face and body, and fantasizing about leaping out of my chair and kissing him.  
A loud squealing sound interrupted his explanation and my thoughts.  
Jeff and I both turned away from each other and towards the front of the auditorium.  
Headmaster Peabody was standing on the stage area, tapping a microphone with his finger and fiddling with some knobs on the speaker next to him, but causing all sorts of obnoxious feedback the entire time. While he was messing with the microphone, someone- I’m assuming from the AV group- turned on the projector and a slide was thrown onto the screen behind him. The slide screen read “WELCOME STUDENTS OF SNOW WOOD” and had a clip art picture of a polar bear on it.  
With one last whining sound, the feedback stopped.   
“Good afternoon, students,” the headmaster droned, his words echoing all throughout the auditorium. In the pause afterwards, someone a few rows back had farted, and there was uproarious laughter for about 3 minutes afterwards, drowning out part of the headmaster’s speech. I did join in on laughing, but instead of spending three minutes cracking up laughing as the others did, I giggled once, and then for over two minutes gave the other kids in that area the stink eye although they couldn’t see it.  
“…and so that covers the most important information you absolutely have to know to survive your first day here at Snow Wood,” the headmaster finished after the laughter had sufficiently died down.  
“Hey!!” I indignantly whispered. “I didn’t hear a single word of that!”  
“Don’t worry,” Jeff reassured me. “On the way out I’ll recap it for you. I’ve been going here for four years now, and the rules never change.”   
The headmaster continued explaining the general rules and expectations. I tried my best to pay attention, but the combination of how overly monotonous and boring his voice was, and the fact that I was sitting next to Jeff ensured my mind would keep on wandering, again and again. As a result, I would only get short bursts of the rules and procedures: “…a maximum of 3 books to be…” “…cannot be used after 8:00 at night as the doors will…” “…should anyone be injured in the general vicinity.”  
Looking at the slides didn’t really help much either, as the person working the slideshow always waited until after Headmaster Peabody had already moved on to another subject to change to the subject he’d just stopped talking about, so they were always way behind. And what’s more is that these were the worst designed slides ever. There were all sorts of florridly colorful, distracting flowcharts and blurry pictures, and the dark green words on the slide were barely visible against the midnight blue background.   
But it really wouldn’t matter how bad the slideshows were if here, I could actually breathe easy, not having to worry that someone was going to suddenly spring on me and hit me in the face with a binder (like this jerk named Darren did to me back in Fourside) or that someone would write homophobic insults all over my stuff (again, in Fourside, but I was never able to find out who all was doing it).  
The next thing I knew, Jeff was calling my name and tapping me on the shoulder.  
“The assembly’s over, Tony. We have to go back to our dorm room just like he said, cause tomorrow’s the first day of actual classes!” Jeff explained.  
I shuffled out of the auditorium, down the hall and up the stairs with him, still kind of in a daze from not only what happened earlier, but also from just the fact that Jeff was still here- and struggling to comprehend just why I liked him so much when I just met the guy!  
When we finally reached our room, I closed the door behind me and sprawled out on my bed. Jeff sat down on the floor in front of the nightstand between the two beds.  
There was only a fraction of a second worth of silence before we both said exactly what we were thinking at the same time: “I’m bored.”  
“It’s far too early to even think about going to bed,” Jeff pointed out.  
“And I don’t know if they’ll let us hang out in the library or not,” I said.  
Jeff sighed, his glasses fogging up a little. “Stupid condensation,” he muttered, taking them off and wiping the lenses on the corner of his jacket. He put his glasses back on and repositioned himself so he was laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling.  
A second later, I found myself getting off of the bed and laying on the floor next to him, also staring at the ceiling.  
“What are we going to do, Tony?” Jeff asked.   
I realized that my hand had been inching closer to Jeff’s hand. In frustration, I rolled over so I was laying on top of my right hand. The last thing I wanted to do was make him disgusted enough with me to stop being my friend. I wanted to know whether he liked boys or not; but at the same time, I didn’t want to spook him and make him realize that I had a desire, deep down inside, to be more than friends with him.  
“It’s really weird…” I said. “This is my first time ever being at a fancy boarding school like this. I’m probably going to end up missing my parents like crazy.”  
“Where did you go to school before this?” Jeff asked.  
“In Fourside- Fourside Intermediate, to be exact.”  
“Wow,” Jeff marveled, “Fourside? Sounds really nice.”  
“I forgot, when most people think about Fourside, they just think about the Monotoli Building and all that,” I giggled. “The rest of Fourside is actually filthy!”  
“What? How so?” Jeff questioned.  
“Well,” I said, sitting up. “It’s way different than Winters. The people in Fourside don’t really care if where they live looks pretty or not. Well, of course, there’s the Monotolis and all those rich people in uptown, but the rest is just…trash. I’m serious, there’s litter and graffiti everywhere. It’s dingy and depressing. Am I ever glad we got out of there!”  
“Oh, my,” Jeff remarked. “I guess that’s why you don’t judge a city until you’ve seen it all.”  
“But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is the people. They were so rude!” I exclaimed, memories of my classmates returning to me. “There were these guys I was friends with…and something happened…and I told them not to tell anybody but they did it anyway…and everyone just laughed at me…they threw my books in the trash and…accused me of…” My eyes started to sting. No, this couldn’t be happening! I was about to cry in front of Jeff! He was going to laugh at me like the rest of them!  
“They all called me gay…” I squeaked. Shoot. I accidentally said it aloud. It was then that I really did start crying.   
I waited for Jeff to shove me and tell me to man up, or tell me they were right, or something much worse that I couldn’t even begin to imagine. But that never happened. He didn’t even laugh. Instead, something magical happened.  
I’d buried my face in my hands, so I couldn’t see what was happening, but I heard a shuffling as he’d gotten up off the floor.  
There was a pause, then I felt his arm on my shoulder. His hand shook a little as he debated removing it, then put both arms around me in a hug.  
It took me by surprise so much that I looked up and, for just a second, forgot exactly what it was I’d been crying about.  
“It’s okay, Tony…I understand. I’ve had issues with bullying too…you’re going to be fine. It’s not like that here,” he assured me.  
I allowed myself to put my arms around him.   
A second ago, I’d been terrified that Jeff would be homophobic like the others. But now, I’d never felt more safe and secure- or more electrified- than here, in Jeff’s arms.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably the longest chapter in this whole fic- don't worry, there isn't another one this long, I don't think! It's what happens during the actual game, with plenty of my interpretations on it.

I remember that day like it was just yesterday. It was right around my birthday, I believe. It seemed like a peaceful night. I’d been having this really nice dream where Jeff and I went for a walk in the park, and we’d gotten ice cream and stuff. The sun felt so nice on my face, and holding his hand in the dream felt so real I was incredibly depressed to find out it was just a dream. But that depression quickly faded to confusion when I realized Jeff was waking me up, in a panic. I started to tell him about the dream, then he gave up and walked to the door. That was even weirder. It was like 10:30 at night, and we weren’t allowed to be out of our rooms past 9:00.  
“Wait, Jeff!” I cried out, sitting up. “Where are you going in the middle of the night? You’ll get in trouble if the hall monitors catch you!”  
He turned around and looked at me, determination and fear in his eyes. “This girl from Eagleland talked to me when I was asleep!” he exclaimed.  
“W-what are you talking about?” I asked.  
“She said that she and this other boy, Ness, are trapped in a basement somewhere and I have to go save them!” he said, putting on his coat and shoes. “I’ve got to head south!”  
“Jeff! You’re going to get in trouble! Don’t do it!” I urged him.  
He looked at me, the silver flecks in his stern aquamarine eyes crackling like they did when he was determined. “Tony, I have to do it. Those two kids are going to die if I don’t.”  
I honestly didn’t know what to think. I was thinking maybe he was getting the flu virus and having a fever dream, but I always did believe in magic and psychic powers and basically supernatural stuff in general. What if he was telling the truth? What if there really are these two kids in danger and Jeff’s the only one who can stop them? If I made Jeff stay here and they died it would be like I killed them myself. But there had to be something I could do! I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if Jeff got eaten by a bear, robbed by someone, or something even worse!  
“Well, then, I’m going with you,” I found myself saying, getting out of bed and putting on my hat and boots.  
“Okay, yeah, that’s fine,” Jeff said. “But we gotta hurry! And be quiet. All I know is I probably need to find some things before I go.”   
He reached down and took my hand, looking into my eyes. I couldn’t help but let out a wavery giggle. “Let’s go.” He led me downstairs, and into a classroom. Inside there were a bunch of kids from the culinary class, all frosting cookies.  
“Hi, J- Aw, man!! You brought Tony! This was supposed to be a surprise for him!” one of the kids said, throwing a icing tube onto the table in frustration at the fact that I apparently ruined my own birthday surprise.  
“We baked you a bunch of cookies and we were going to give them to you but now it’s not going to be as much of a surprise…” said another boy, putting some cookies into a tissue paper-lined box.  
I was flattered at the fact that they all baked me cookies, but Jeff just stared at the box of cookies pensively.  
“Is something wrong?” I asked him. Suddenly he took one of them right out of the box and put it in his pocket!  
Under most circumstances, I would have given a shocked guffaw like I sometimes do when I’m extremely surprised by something, but I was too busy worrying about this thing Jeff was about to go sneak out of school and do to care about my birthday cookies.  
“Jeff!” The first boy pounded the icing tube with his fist, splattering icing everywhere.  
“Jeff, I can’t believe you could do something so nasty!” a third boy piped up.  
“Nah,” I muttered. “You can have ‘em. I don’t need the sugar.”  
“But Tony, we made these for you… It isn’t Jeff’s birthday tomorrow!” he protested.  
“And I’m not going on a life-threatening-“ I started.  
“Ssshhhhh…” Jeff shushed me. Apparently this mission was supposed to be a secret?  
“Uh…sugar binge.” I finished awkwardly. “Jeff needs all the sugar he can get so he can…do…brain calisthenics?”  
“He needs your birthday cookies to do brain calisthenics? What are you talking about, Tony?” the second boy asked suspiciously.  
I picked up the box, not saying anything.   
“No more answers!” I shoved Jeff out of the door, slammed it and thrust the box of cookies in his face. “If a bear tries to eat you, throw these to him. It might not work but I want to at least do SOMETHING to help make sure you don’t die!”  
“I didn’t want all your cookies,” Jeff started. “I only wanted the one…”  
I glared at him, trying to do my best supervillain look. “TAKE THE STUPID COOKIES,” I ordered him.  
“Okay, okay, geez,” he said, and took the box, eyes widened.  
I felt kind of guilty for being scary and yelling at him, but we were already going into the science lab.   
“Jeff, what are we-“ I started to ask, when I noticed Maxwell at the desk, doing paperwork. Maxwell was one of the teachers’ assistants. The teacher told us we’re supposed to call him Mr. Labs but he always wrinkles his nose at us when we call him that and says something like, “Just call me Maxwell, it’s not as formal and stuffy”. Maxwell seemed to adore Jeff but was kind of indifferent towards me. He once rolled his eyes before answering a question I had, and I thought he laughed when I pronounced “fluorine” the Fourside way- pronouncing the I as a long E- instead of the Winters way- pronouncing it as a short I; however, I will admit, it might have been another student laughing at me.   
I tried to turn around and leave, but Jeff grabbed my arm. “We need to ask him for something,” he whispered, and walked over to the desk with me.  
“Hi, Maxwell,” Jeff said.  
“Boys! What are you doing here so late? Are you here for a late night snack or something?” he asked.  
“Um…” I tried to come up with an excuse that didn’t involve a weird dream.  
“This girl in Eagleland talked to me in a dream and I need to save her and this other boy, and I need something for the journey!” Jeff blurted out.  
I was shocked. Why did he tell Maxwell that? Maxwell was probably going to take that as an opportunity to get me kicked out and tell Mr. Peabody that we were skulking around campus after curfew and that we planned to sneak out of school!  
Maxwell just sat there with his mouth open and his brow furrowed, trying to understand what Jeff just said.  
“So let me get this straight: A psychic girl is in trouble so she used telepathy to communicate via long-range brain waves and you need some supplies for the treacherous journey?” he slowly asked.  
Jeff nodded. I probably looked like I was about to puke.  
“Well, then.” Maxwell dropped his pen and stared at the tests he was grading for a second, then opened a drawer in his desk, pulled something out and deposited a key into Jeff’s hand.  
“Take this. You should be able to use it in the lockers next door. Nobody’s ever cleaned those out so they might have some good stuff in there. It might be a little bent, so you’ll want to try it out first. If it doesn’t work come right back here,” said Maxwell.  
We walked to the locker room. “I’m honestly really surprised,” I said, holding the door open for him. “Not only didn’t he tell on us, he also helped us!”  
“That’s because he knows…um… Dr. Andonuts.” Jeff said. “He’s met him a few times and he’s a big fan of his work.”  
“Um, Jeff? I don’t mean to be rude, but, uh…Why do you call your dad by that? I mean you make it sound like he’s someone else’s dad…” I nervously asked. Only twice had I ever heard him refer to his dad as Dad. And even then, he always corrected himself.  
“It’s…I…I’d rather not say,” he said. “I mean, the only substantial amount of time I get to see him is right about when school starts, and occasionally in a summer here or there. When I’m not here I usually live with my mom and we don’t really talk to him on the phone…”   
“Oh, okay. I- I’m sorry,” I said. I felt kind of bad hearing this news. I wanted to say more but I have no idea what I would have said, or what I could have said.   
Jeff didn’t say anything and tried to open the locker. It just made a bunch of noise and didn’t open.  
“It won’t fit,” Jeff observed.  
“It’s broken,” I said. “He gave us a bad key on purpose so he can distract us then spring all the teachers on us!”  
“Sshh!” Jeff put his hand over my mouth for a second. “Are you aware of the acoustics of this room? We’ll definitely get caught if we speak that loudly in here!” He grabbed my hand and ran back to the classroom with me.  
“It didn’t work, did it?” Maxwell asked when we entered the room.  
“No,” Jeff said. “It’s all bent up!”  
“I thought so. That’s why I also have this machine just for opening locks when you have a bad key!” Maxwell said. He went to a closet and pulled out this small black plastic box about the size of a brick that had a cord and two tiny metal rods attached to the cord. “Put these rods into the keyhole. The machine will do the rest of the work.”  
Jeff took the machine and walked back to the locker, and I followed behind.   
“What if this machine doesn’t work?” I asked. “He probably gave us a broken machine too, so that he can call the pri-“  
Jeff just looked at me over his glasses with this withering stare. “If he really wanted to get us in trouble,” he reasoned, “then he would have done it when he first gave us the bad key.”  
I put up my hands in acquiesence. “Okay, okay,” I said.  
He held out the box part of the machine to me and told me to hold it and flip the switch when the rods were in the locker.  
I took it- and it ended up being really heavy! It didn’t look so heavy when they were both holding it- maybe about 2 pounds at the most- but it weighed like 10 pounds, maybe more!   
“Wow!” I gasped. “How is this so heavy?! It’s only the size of a brick, but it feels like I’m holding 5 bricks!”   
“Just flip the switch,” Jeff said. “When-“  
I didn’t even think to look and see if he was signaling for me to press the switch, and I just pressed it. It made this really loud grinding noise and the rods and cord were flapping around.   
“Gaah!” Jeff cried out after one of the rods hit him in the face. “Stop, stop!”  
I turned it off in alarm. “Are you okay??” I asked him, all but throwing the box down to check on him.  
Jeff adjusted his glasses and smoothed his hair back out. “I hadn’t put the rods in the keyhole yet! I meant to say ‘when I give you the signal, THEN push the button!’”  
He delicately put the rods into the keyhole. “Now,” he said. “Now you can push the button.  
I pushed it, and again it made a grinding noise, but this time I heard the lock click. I turned it off and Jeff opened the door. “It works,” he said. “But all that’s in here is fabric fibers, animal dander, dead skin cells, pollen and dirt.”   
I wrinkled up my nose. “It’s that filthy?”  
Jeff turned around. “That’s dust,” he said.   
“Oh,” I chuckled. “I knew that.”  
Together we opened up all the lockers. Most of them didn’t have anything in them, but one of them had one of those little toy guns and some exploding caps.   
“I thought these weren’t allowed at school!” I gasped, picking up one of the caps. “How do you use these-“ I dropped it and Jeff accidentally stepped backwards onto the cap, causing it to pop loudly. Poor Jeff jumped about a foot in the air. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!!” I cried out.   
“I’m okay, just slightly filled with adrenaline…” he said, inspecting his shoe. There was a slight dent in the heel of his shoe where the cap had gone off.   
“But you’re okay, right? Like it doesn’t hurt or anything?” I asked.   
“A little, but I’ll be all right,” he replied. He put the toy gun and caps into his backpack.   
With that, we decided to leave. As we neared the front door, I realized we still had the bad key machine. “Shouldn’t we bring that back to Maxwell?” I asked him.  
“I think he won’t be too mad if I take it. Besides, it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” he said, and put the bad key machine into his backpack too, making sure not to drop it on any of the caps.  
I looked at the desk for the secretary and teachers. Miraculously, nobody was there, watching the lobby. Quickly, I ran out the front doors with Jeff, and breathed a sigh of relief. It was a clear, cool night, and-   
“The gates are shut!” Jeff cried out, pointing at the closed gate. They always closed the front gate at night so nobody can get in- or, unfortunately, out.   
I suddenly had an idea. I ran to the gate and threw myself down in front of it, on my hands and knees.  
“You can use me as a step to climb over the top of the gate,” I suggested. Jeff walked down the step towards me and climbed up onto my back. I tried not to blush from the feeling of him making physical contact with me. He swung himself over the top of the gate and made a perfect landing outside. I got up off of the ground. I was wet and covered with snow, but I didn’t really care.   
“I guess this is goodbye, Jeff…” I sadly said. I didn’t want him to go- not just because I was worried about him, but also because I just didn’t want to be without him for however long he would be gone. “Just know that no matter what happens, we’ll always be friends.”  
“Farewell, Tony…” Jeff said, and then ran off towards the south.  
I stood out there for a while longer, and then turned around and went back inside.  
“Hey, you!” this one teacher cried out when I went back inside. “You know the rules- no going outside after 6:30! It’s 10:30 at night! What on earth were you doing out there, mister??”   
“I- I dropped my hat out the window and it landed in some bushes,” I stammered. “I had to get it.” That was a good excuse. It also explained why I was all wet and covered in melting snow!  
The teacher nodded. “Okay, but just this once! If this happens again you’ll have to leave it until the morning! And close that window! Our heating bills are jacked up high enough as is!” She let me return to my dorm room. I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that I didn’t have her for any of my classes.

He had been gone on that adventure for close to 3 months. Jeff tried to write to me whenever he could, and I called Ness’s reciever phone almost daily since Jeff gave me Ness’s number, and asked to talk to Jeff. One day, however, Ness… well, I don’t know what was with Ness. He must have been in a really bad mood because one time when I called and asked to speak to Jeff, Ness just screamed into the phone, “No! You can’t talk to Jeff! Will you quit calling me?!” and then in the background, I heard a girl talking and there was some shuffling. “Hello, Tony?” a girl asked. “This is Paula. I’m traveling with Jeff and Ness. I’m really sorry about Ness. It’s just that we’re in the sewers under Fourside right now and the smell is really getting to all of us. Ness hates being down here in the filth even more than I do, if that’s possible! How- hey, guys, look! There’s graffiti on the wall! Can you believe someone else came down here? Oh.. Oh, guys?? Guys, look, up there’s—“  
“Ness, watch out!”  
“Holy crap!”  
There was a massive splash and growling. I heard static and more fumbling. Then the signal dropped.  
I, admittedly, freaked out. I tried calling back twice more, but it didn’t work. I was about to call a third time, but a boy knocked on the door and asked when I was coming to math class. I walked with him down to the math classroom, terrified. I waited out math and social studies, staring nervously at the clock. I was too spooked to do any real work, so I spent an hour and a half trying not to be worried about Jeff. Once the bell rang, dismissing us for lunch, everyone made a mad dash to the cafeteria. Everyone, that is, except me. I ran for the dorms and picked up the phone in our room. I called Ness’s reciever phone, fingers crossed. It rang for a long time. I thought nobody was going to pick up, but then there was a bunch of static on the other end. I could hear their voices periodically through the static- “…at the- I couldn’t- can you- Jeff?”  
“In rice- rat- damaged- clean the scum- speaker!”  
“Um…hello?” I asked.  
“To- …phone…logged….Jeff…gizmos…unable…hear me?” Paula asked.  
“I can’t hear you! Are you in a tunnel or something?” I asked.  
“Water…dropped…can’t h-…letter,” she said.   
Oh. That explains a lot. Someone dropped the phone in water earlier when they got attacked by…something. But great! Now how am I going to see if Jeff’s okay?? I may be paranoid, but I just couldn’t live without him, and I wasn’t going to take any chances when it came to him. There’s no way! I hung up the phone and paced around my room. I wasn’t going down to lunch anytime soon; I was way too upset to eat. After a few more minutes of freaking out, I decided to go out myself and rescue Jeff. I ran to the front lobby. Unfortunately, the secretary was there, and she was on the phone. I couldn’t sneak out of there with her ready to spring on me and bring me back to my room, so I needed to create a diversion. When she turned around, I threw the “Wet Floor” sign leaning against the wall down the hall. It made a loud clattering sound. I ran out the front door when she got up to see what that sound was. Luckily, because it was daytime, the gates were open. I took off running down the street and made a hard right and ran across this massive clearing. I couldn’t run any longer, and I was a good ways away from the school, so I sat down in the snow and took a break. The snow soaked through my shorts and got me all wet. It wasn’t very comfortable, but I was out of breath from running and didn’t feel like getting up. Suddenly, I heard the snow behind me crunching. I stood up and turned around. There was a bear standing a few meters away, and he was staring right at me. I froze in fear. But when the bear started walking towards me again, I turned around and hightailed it out of there- then ran into someone. “I’m sor…so…bear!” I stammered. I looked up at the person. This guy had on like a silver spacesuit, with a visor and triangle patch on the left side of his chest. There were two identical dudes behind him. I hadn’t even been thinking about running off yet, but the spacesuit guy grabbed me and wrapped his long, silvery arms around me. I screamed and tried to squirm away from him, but I couldn’t get free.  
“This specimen would appease Master Giygas,” he said in a tinny, robotic voice.   
The other space guys nodded their heads, and they threw me into a spaceship. I landed on a guy who was wearing a long blue coat and a weird hat that went over his eyes. The guy didn’t move.   
“Aaaaahhh!” I shrieked. “A dead guy!”  
“Specimen number 0483 is still conscious,” one of the spacesuit guys said. “Should I use the stunner?”  
“But of course,” the other one said. He pointed what looked like a labelmaker at me, and then I fell asleep. Next thing I knew, I was somewhere else- probably. I couldn’t open my eyes for some reason, so I couldn’t see if I was anywhere else. There was something really cold covering me that felt like a cross between pool water and gelatin. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t open my eyes, or move a muscle. I couldn’t even breathe, but it didn’t feel like I was holding my breath. It didn’t even hurt, not being able to breathe. It was like my body was dead but my brain wasn’t.  
“Where am I??” I silently pleaded. “Am I dead? What’s this cold stuff? Where is everyone? Where are the astronaut guys? This is really scary!”  
I don’t know how long I was there, in that weird half conscious, half unconscious state. I repeatedly pleaded mentally to be returned to where I was, and I also silently demanded to know if Jeff was okay. But I spent most of the time praying. I hadn’t ever really been to church before, and I’m not a very religious guy, but I prayed for my own safety- and Jeff’s, too.  
Suddenly, however much time later, I heard glass breaking, and a jolt. I felt the gelatinous water move, and my body sliding on the water, onto a hard surface.   
“Is he dead?” I could hear a boy ask.  
“Tony!” I heard Jeff cry out. “Tony, no… Please…”  
Jeff! He’s okay! I think. I still couldn’t move, breathe or open my eyes.  
“Kid, the boy’s not dead,” a gruff old man’s voice said. “He’s in suspended animation, like I was.”  
“Everdred’s right,” Paula said. “If you wake Tony up he’ll be okay.”  
I felt someone sit me up, and wrap their arms around my waist. Suddenly they squeezed me, and all of a sudden I was able to move. I collapsed back onto the floor, my chest burning like I’d been holding my breath, and puked up a bunch of water that tasted like pineapples. I fell off to the side, coughing, gasping for breath and spitting out more water. When that was finally over, I sat up, shivering and catching my breath, thankful that I wasn’t dead- and especially that Jeff was okay!  
“It’s all right, Tony,” Jeff said. “The Starmen won’t hurt you again. Guys, let me stay here alone with him…”   
I sat there for a long time, catching my breath. Every so often, someone would pat me on the back.  
I gained the courage to open my eyes at long last. I was in this really weird-looking hall that reminded me of a spaceship. There was broken glass and green water everywhere, and it smelled like pineapples and metal. On the walls were a few empty glass tubes. I turned around, and Jeff was behind me. He was kneeling on the ground, and he looked worried. There was soot and dirt on his face, and his hair looked frazzled like it was full of static electricity. I gave him a hug, crying a little. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for saving me.”   
“We’ve defeated the Starmen, Tony. You’re all right. Everything’s okay,” he reassured me.   
Somebody knocked on the door at the other end of the room.   
“Hey, is he feeling all right yet?” a boy asked.   
“Ness?” Jeff asked. “Yes. He’s fine. Yes, you can come in.”  
A boy in a striped shirt, blue jean shorts and a baseball cap opened the door. His blue eyes widened when he saw me.  
“I kinda thought you were dead myself when I saw you!” he said to me. “Here, I’ll heal you. Everdred didn’t need it but I did it anyway. I’ll do it for you, too, just in case.”  
The boy put his fingers on his temple, and closed his eyes. His arms started glowing with a bright purple light. He then held his hands out at me, and the light flowed out of his hands and spiraled around me. I suddenly noticed I wasn’t cold anymore, and I no longer felt all out of it like before.   
The light disappeared in a shower of little sparkles, and the boy opened his eyes. “Okay, you’re fine now.”  
“He has psychic powers,” Jeff whispered to me. I guess he picked up on how incredibly surprised I was.   
“Where are we?” I asked, as a blonde girl in a pink dress, and a boy with black hair tied into a long ponytail and a karate gi entered the room.  
“Oh!” Jeff suddenly said, standing up. “Um, Tony? I’d like to introduce you to everyone. He walked over to the boy in the striped shirt. “This is Ness.”  
“Hi there!” he said, waving.  
Jeff walked over to the girl. “This is Paula…”  
“It’s nice to meet you!” she said, curtsying.  
“And last but not least, Poo!”  
The boy in the karate gi bowed. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said.  
“It’s great to meet everyone. Really,” I said, smiling. “But where am I? Are we even still in Winters anymore?”  
“I’m not sure,” Paula said.   
“Well, yes, but I don’t know WHERE in Winters we are,” Ness said.  
“I do,” Jeff said. “We’re under Stonehenge. It’s really far from Snow Wood, though.”  
“Under Stonehenge?” I asked. “You mean there’s something underground there?”  
“Yes,” Poo repeated. “It is an expansive location built by aliens in ancient times.”  
“How did I get here? And what’s this room? What was with the weird gelatin water…stuff that smelled like pineapples??”  
“The Starmen abducted you, as well as several other innocent citizens, and put them in suspended animation. Luckily, however, we were able to stop their sinister plot,” Poo explained.  
“Well, how are we supposed to get home?” I asked.  
“I can teleport…” Ness suggested. “But we can’t do any of that right now. We’ve still got another 2 sanctuaries to visit, then we’ve got to put a stop to Giygas’s evil plans!”   
“You mean…?” I asked sadly.  
“That’s right,” Jeff said. “We’re not done yet.”  
“Aww!!” I loudly moaned. “But you’ve been on this journey for FOREVER, Jeff! Are you EVER coming back to Winters?”  
“I hope so, Tony,” he said, hugging me tightly. “I hope so.”  
“You hope so? You mean…It’s not c-certain?” I squeaked.  
“Well, not if he di-“ Ness started to say, but someone covered his mouth.  
“You’re not helping!” Paula hissed. She ran over to me, standing next to Jeff.   
“It’s all right, Tony,” she reassured me. “Everyone’s going to be fine. And then we can all go back home and Jeff will finally come home for good. The world won’t be in danger anymore, and we’ll all be happy and safe.”  
“Man, what’s safety?” Ness said. “I’ve been in so much danger I forgot what it’s like to be safe!”  
“Danger??” I worriedly asked, burying my face in Jeff’s chest. “I don’t want you to go!!!”  
“Ness!!!” Jeff and Paula both shouted.   
While they were both cooing and reassuring me that everything, Jeff included, would be okay, I heard Poo mumble something under their reassurances, and the door opening and closing.  
“Did Poo just-“ Jeff suddenly said.  
“Look, you’re taking forever!” Ness whined. “Poo got sick of everyone just sitting here coddling Tony, so he left!”  
“Because he’s terrified! You’d be scared, too, if you were taken away from your home and family by some robot strangers, got stuffed in a tube where you couldn’t breathe for 4 months, and woke up in some weird place and just found out your best friend is going to have to fight a big alien monster!” Paula yelled.   
“I would not!” Ness protested. “I’d beat up the Starmen and steal their spaceship and make a daring escape!”  
Paula glared at him. “You want to make a bet on that?” she asked.  
“4 months!?” I cried. “I want to go home, Jeff! Take me back to Snow Wood, where there aren’t any monsters or robots or anything and we can just go to sleep and forget all of this ever happened!!”  
“I wish we could, Tony. I wish we could. But it’s my duty as one of the Chosen Four to go and defeat Giygas and stop the world from ending,” Jeff explained.   
“I’m going to miss you so much, Jeff,” I said.  
“I know, Tony. I’ll miss you,” he murmured.   
“The sound of your voice…” I said. “…your laugh…the way you always know exactly what to do and say…your eyes…the smell of your hair…your beautiful smile…”  
Jeff let go of me, blushing. “Okay, Tony...” he said. “Okay, I get-“  
Ness was giggling in the background, but I ignored him. When was I going to get another chance to talk to Jeff after this? Possibly never…  
“That cute way your hair curves around your glasses…watching you sleep and how you make those cute little snoring sounds when-“  
“Okay!!!” Jeff said. “Why don’t we just leave it as you’re really going to miss me? And besides, it’s not like I’m going to die or anything!!”  
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly.  
“Well, I guess it’s time for us to find out how to get you home,” he said, walking over to Ness. I followed him.   
“You’re finally done saying your overly dramatic goodbyes?” Ness said sarcastically.  
“Ness!” Paula reprimanded him.  
“They took 10 minutes just to do that and we’re not even out of this stinking dungeon yet!” Ness cried. “None of that was necessary, Jeff! Why couldn’t you just leave it at ‘Bye Tony, see you later’?!”  
“Because they’re best friends! What would you do, Ness, if I was the one who got abducted by the Starmen and stuffed in a tube and you had to rescue me?” she asked him.  
“Well, I- um- that’s different!” Ness cried, blushing. He ran behind Paula and Jeff and pushed them towards the door. “Let’s just go to the hotel and call a cab or something for Tony!!”  
I ran to catch up to them, and we walked up a bunch of stairs and weird, super trippy, futuristic halls until we got to the entrance. We all climbed out of a hole in the ground and I realized we were standing in the middle of Stonehenge.  
“You were right,” I said. “We are still in Winters.”   
Suddenly, something occurred to me. “Hey!” I exclaimed. “This isn’t close to Snow Wood, but it’s really close to my real house!”   
I started running off towards my house.  
“Very well then,” Poo said.  
“It was great to meet you, Tony! I hope I can see you again soon,” Ness said.  
“Wait-“ I stopped and turned around. “None of you are coming with?”  
“Well-“ Jeff started. “I’d love to see your house, but…um…”  
“Listen, I don’t think there’s enough time!” Paula exclaimed. “The universe is at stake! We’ve got to go- immediately! Go home to safety.”  
I ran up and gave Jeff a hug goodbye and then addressed Ness, Paula and Poo.  
“Make sure he’s okay…please,” I softly said, and then left back for my house. I ran down the streets, terrified- not just terrified that Jeff would get hurt, but also that another Starman would abduct me! But luckily, I ran onto my street and saw my front porch. Safety! I ran full-tilt for the door and frantically pounded on the door, breathing hard.  
My dad answered the door.   
“Tony!” he exclaimed. “You’re alive?”   
“Dad!” I cried, hugging him. “I’m so glad to see you! Yes! I’m alive!! I’m alive, and Jeff’s alive too!!”  
He unsurely patted me on the back. “But they said you got eaten by a bear! What’s going on here?”  
“What’s going on? Ohmigod! Is that Tony??”  
“Mom!” I exclaimed, and grabbed Dad’s hand and ran inside, giving both of them a big hug.   
“What happened? Why did they think you died at school?” Dad asked. “The principal just announced that they’re going to be bearproofing the campus, top to bottom! But you’re alive! There wasn’t a bear, was there?”  
“No, I didn’t get eaten by a bear…Okay, please believe me, guys,” I said, sitting down on the couch. “So my best friend and roommate, Jeff- I’m pretty sure I’ve already written you countless letters about him- had this weird trippy dream where some psychic girl contacted him, right? And then we found a pop cap gun in a locker, and spoiled my birthday surprise, and he had to leave! Then a few months later I got really scared because he dropped the phone in water- well, it wasn’t his phone, it belonged to this other guy he saved in addition to the psychic girl, their names were Paula and Ness, Ness is the boy who had the phone- and I tried to go out and save him! Well…there actually was a bear, but while I was running from him I got abducted by these alien robots and next thing I know I’m in a tube in suspended animation! Then just a while ago Jeff, Ness, Paula and this other boy named Poo- don’t laugh, that’s really his name, he’s from somewhere else- rescued me! And now they’re going to go fight an alien! Well, actually, I think Ness or Poo said something about two more sanctuaries, whatever that means. I’m really worried about Jeff.”  
My parents just looked at me in shock.  
“That sounds like the plot of a science fiction story!” my dad said.  
“Our little Anthony…imagination big as the galaxy!” my mom replied.  
“No, please! You’ve got to believe me!” I pleaded. “That really happened! Ness called the aliens Starmen, and they put me in this tube full of weird green water that smelled like pineapples!”  
“Pineapples?” my dad asked.  
“Pineapples!” my mom said, and ran to the couch. She leaned over and sniffed my hair. “William, he smells like pineapples, and his hair is sticky! There are little green splotches on his shirt, too! I don’t think he was making this up anymore!”  
“Huh?” my dad asked, and he also sniffed me. “Well, so you do! I just can’t believe that that sort of stuff could possibly be real…”  
“Well,” my mom said, shaking her head. “I can’t possibly even imagine the things you’ve been through! Being abducted by aliens…being in suspended animation…everyone thinking you were dead for a few months…”  
“Oddly enough, it didn’t feel like a few months. It felt more like a day or two that just dragged on and on endlessly,” I laughed. “Kind of like a big test or something.”  
“But without the math, right?” Dad chuckled. “I know it sure would be torture to me if some aliens abducted me and forced me to do math!”  
Little did we know that my abduction was just the tip of the iceberg.   
It wasn’t too long before I went back to school- and of course, everyone was surprised at my arrival, because they, too, had thought I was eaten by a bear. I must have told everyone in the school the story of how I’d gotten abducted by an alien about 100 times, and naturally, very few people believed me. I felt like I was going to puke if one more person asked me, “So, wait- if you didn’t get eaten by a bear, what really happened to you?”  
Jeff and I kept writing letters to each other, and I remember that he said that they had just gotten the final melody and were almost ready to go and fight Giygas, when suddenly everything in Winters changed. Suddenly, other people at my school started disappearing, and there were constantly news stories on about these weird occurrences- unexplained explosions caused by what seems to be nothing at all, evil robots everywhere, the sky going dark, normal people suddenly turning blue and doing unspeakably bad things “in the name of Giygas”. During lunch, all my classmates could talk about was how this meant the world was going to end, and what they were going to do before the apocalypse. I wasn’t afraid, though- I knew Jeff, Ness, Poo and Paula could stop Giygas. But as time progressed, everything in Winters got even worse. When one of the teachers and a few students “went alien”, as becoming one of Giygas’s minions became known, the headmaster sent them home so that they couldn’t destroy everyone and everything in the school. Slowly I lost my optimism, and I became scared again. What if the four of them really couldn’t do it? I mean, Giygas was this being of almost infinite power. He could probably wipe anyone out with just a blink of his eye- if he had eyes; I didn’t know what Giygas looked like, and frankly, I didn’t want to know. At this point in time, the sky was a swirling mess of darkness, there were evil animals, people, robots and all kinds of creatures running amok outside, and the teachers had all stopped caring about teaching actual lessons, aside from what to do if you got abducted by an alien to try and get converted to a supporter of Giygas. They all just had the news running in every single class, and most of the other staff were busy acting like security guards, trying to make sure nothing got in and nobody went out. Anywhere you went you had to get escorted by a teacher, and the hall monitors were constantly on their feet, coming to the dorms almost once an hour to make sure everyone was still there.   
During lunch one of these final days, a boy from my chemistry class, who had heard about Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo going to fight Giygas, said maybe this was all happening because Giygas killed them. I all but broke down crying. It made too much sense. If they had been successful, things wouldn’t have gotten this bad, right? Then all this- the teachers putting the school into lockdown mode, the Winters Mounted Cavalry running through the entire town, our military securing Stonehenge- was pointless! Giygas was going to wipe us all out too!   
I muttered something about having to finish writing an essay to my friends at the lunch table, and asked one of the teacher’s assistants by the door if I could go back to my dorm. He escorted me back to the dorm hall, at which point I ran down the hall to my room, crying. I slammed the door and flopped facedown onto Jeff’s bed, sobbing hard into his pillow- which had long since stopped smelling like Jeff and now just smelled like dust. So long I had refused to face the possibility that Jeff was dead, but now, things were diffrerent. Everything was different, and I was going to die too.   
I hated Giygas. I sincerely wished he would just go to hell for everything he’s done to me, all of humanity, everything on this planet, and most of all, Jeff, Paula, Ness and Poo.   
Out of absolutely nowhere, though, I suddenly had this rush of optimism. I heard a tiny voice in the back of my head, telling me that they were all still alive. I sat up, and focused all my mental attention on this thought. It…it sounded like Paula! Yes, I heard it clearly now. She was begging for anyone to help them, that she and her friends desperately needed help. My heart soared, knowing that they were all still alive. Tears still rushing down my face, I got down on my knees.  
“I am still here for you…I’m standing by you. Giygas won’t win! Our hearts beating as one, we are invincible! Victory is ours!” I silently prayed. “In the bleakest hours, our spirits will shine through!”  
I softly repeated this mantra in my head for I don’t even know how long. Suddenly, the ground started shaking. Before this had all happened, I would have thought that this was it- the apocalypse was on us. But instead of letting my resolve falter, I kept praying for their safety. Suddenly there was this massive sort of low droning noise outside, and a flash. I fell backwards onto the floor, and the shaking and droning stopped. I went to the window and nervously peered out. To my astonishment, the sky was a bright blue again, and all the robots, aliens and evil animals were gone! I rushed down to the cafeteria, where there were still students and teachers getting up off the floor from the shock wave. Most of the students already standing were at the windows, cheering.  
The boy who had said Ness and the others were dead, ran up to me and hugged me tightly, jumping up and down.   
“Does this mean-“ I squeaked out.  
“They’re not dead!!! We’ve won, Tony! We won!!” he cried out. “Victory to the humans!!!”   
Victory to the humans. That phrase hit me full-force. He was right. Not only were Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo not dead, but they had also won. Unsure what else to do, I tore away from him and ran outside, past the open gates. I took a deep breath of fresh air in and let out a loud scream of joy. Everything was going to be okay again! I went back inside, never happier with the world.   
It wasn’t too long afterwards that I felt a hand on my shoulder. “We’ve done it, Tony,” a familiar voice said.  
I looked up, and Jeff was behind me. There was soot on his face, and his hair was kind of matted, along with one of the lenses on his glasses being cracked.   
“Jeff!” I cried out, and jumped on him, wrapping him in a hug.   
“Thanks,” he said. “If you hadn’t prayed for us, Paula says we never could have made it! Oh, by the way, I got your letter…” He took an envelope out of his knapsack. It was the last letter I had sent him, just before they went to fight Giygas.  
“You- you didn’t let anyone read it, did you?” I asked, blushing. I had written some pretty embarrassing stuff in there to Jeff. I had accidentally made my crush on him a little too obvious in hindsight, but I still sent it anyway. Besides, he was always really understanding about that sort of thing.  
“No, no,” he reassured me.   
He silently stood there, and we both looked at each other, never happier to see each other before. Suddenly, he smiled wider and almost jumped on me, giving me a great big bear hug.  
“It’s so nice to be back here with you,” he said.  
I hugged him back, taking in the smell of his hair, and the new hint of a smell of smoke, motor oil and bacon clinging to his clothes. I had really, really missed the way he always smelled.


	5. Chapter 5

Summer vacation! I’d been anticipating this for what felt like forever. I’d already asked for Jeff’s number so we could talk over the summer, but I still didn’t like having to say goodbye to him. While everyone else made a mad dash out of the school, waving their suitcases and various possessions over their heads, we walked out of the school calmly. I don’t know what Jeff thought about it, but I was seriously dreading getting into my mom’s car and going home. For the entire summer.  
“Well, this is exciting, isn’t it, Tony?” Jeff asked after a few seconds of silence when we were waiting for our parents.   
“Yeah…I guess so,” I muttered, staring at a group of kids who seemed to be having a screaming contest. I wanted to tell them to shut up, but it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, what did I have to be so bitter about?? It wasn’t like we wouldn’t have any way to contact each other.   
“Is something wrong?” he asked, as I attempted to act more cheerful.  
“No, nothing’s wrong…everything’s just fine…” I tried my best to not sound sad- mostly because I didn’t really feel like I had a good reason to be sad.  
I could tell that Jeff was feeling uneasy about something. “Tony? I’m not the one who’s going to move to Fourside this summer, that’s Billy from our math class. You don’t have to worry. I’ll remain right here in Winters. No more adventures where I go off and fight aliens- I’m not even going on any vacations. In fact, the first thing that Dr. And- um, my dad did with the money I got for saving the world was put it in my college fund, because he thinks I won’t get a good education anywhere other than the most expensive school in the country.” Jeff laughed nervously at the end of his sentence. “And the thing is, I did lots of research that proves that there’s a much cheaper, even better school to attend which isn’t too much further away than the one he was talking about!”   
I didn’t say anything. I just jammed my hands into my pockets and stared at the ground, deep in thought.  
Jeff sighed and put his hand on my shoulder. “I really don’t know what other assurances I could provide,” he said. “I can only help you if you inform me as to what’s wrong.”  
“I just don’t know,” I muttered. A car horn startled me.   
“Hey! Earth to Tony!” my mom hollered.   
“Sorry! I’ll be right there!” I called out to her. I turned to Jeff. “Well…bye…” I said, and gave him a hug goodbye.   
“I’ll see you as soon as possible! Hey, maybe you can visit sometime? I’ll be staying with Dr. Andonuts the whole summer. His house is pretty nice,” Jeff asked, waving at me as I walked to my mom’s car.   
“Okay,” I said, and threw my suitcase into the backseat. “Bye, Jeff.” I got into the car, ashamed for some unknown reason.  
We’d barely escaped the traffic jam at the gates before my mom reached over and pinched my cheek affectionately. “Grumpy on the first day back! What’s wrong, Tony? You weren’t like that all year, were you?”  
“Nope,” I said, staring forlornly out the window. “I’m just sad the year had to end so abruptly.”  
Mom giggled. “So you liked it? No problems?” she asked.  
“No, not a one…” I sighed.   
“Who was that boy you were talking to? The one with the glasses? He was pretty cute…” she said.  
I looked at her for a moment, then all at once the memories of this year with Jeff came flooding in and I forgot all about moping around. “That was Jeff, my roommate! He’s just so perfect!” I spent the rest of the drive home telling Mom all about Jeff and how I felt about him. “And I just didn’t want to give up getting to stay with him, and I don’t really like the idea of not getting to see him very often…” I said, as we walked up to our house. I gasped, having just now made a connection in my mind. “That must have been why I was sad! Jeff noticed it too, and kept telling me he wasn’t moving away.”   
My mom nodded and unlocked the front door. “That makes sense,” she said. “And does he know how you feel yet?”   
“No…” I said, blushing. “I was too scared to tell him. I mean, I’ve kind of hinted at it before, but when he got really close to finding out and asked if I liked him, I denied it because I felt like I had to! I don’t think he likes me like that. He probably likes girls.”  
I sat down on the couch as Mom closed the door behind her, announcing to my father that she was home. “Well, you are going to see him again over the summer…maybe you should tell him then. He’s your best friend, and he sounds really nice. He’d definitely understand, and if he doesn’t like you, he’ll be more than happy to talk it out with you.”  
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I really don’t want him to hate me…”  
“I’m positive, Tony. I’m not rushing you- tell him whenever you feel like it- but the quicker you tell him, the less likely it is that he’ll end up getting a girlfriend- or boyfriend- before you can tell him that you like him.” Mom patted me on my shoulder.   
As I walked off to my room to unpack my things, I thought carefully about what Mom said. After I’d carefully arranged my books and found a picture frame for the picture of me and Jeff that he’d asked someone to take of us on our class field trip to the zoo, I held the picture to my chest and sat down on the floor, reliving all the memories of this year, then imagining what it’d be like if Jeff felt the same way about me that I did about him. Snapping out of my dreamland, I pulled the piece of notebook paper that had Jeff’s phone number on it out of my suitcase and picked up the reciever on the phone in my room.


	6. Chapter 6

“Uh…um…hello?” I heard an older man ask. There was a bunch of beeping and crashing sounds in the background.   
“Is…is Jeff there? It’s Tony, his best friend…” I stammered, trying not to sound dumb.  
“Absolutely! He’s told me all about you…” There was a huge clattering in the background, as though someone had dropped several pots. The man, who I assumed was Dr. Andonuts, Jeff’s father, swore quietly under his breath. “Sorry, sorry…I’ll transfer you to him right now.”  
There was silence and a short burst of static, then I heard Jeff’s melodious voice. “Is it…is it on? Oh! Hi, Tony!! I’m so glad you decided to see if this number works. It auto-directs to the phone in… in Dad’s…Dr. Andonuts’s lab instead of this wireless reciever, and I’m still trying to work out all the bugs…”  
I blushed a little. How I loved it when he talked about nerdy technology-related stuff!   
“That’s great!” I exclaimed.  
“I took some of the infared sensors out of the radar that he’s working on, and I put them in the reciever, and attached an antenna to it. The rest of the phone is actually sitting outside on a table in the hallway! I…figured out… I’m really sorry, Tony. I don’t mean to bore you.” There were some shuffling noises on the other end.  
“It’s not boring at all. I really like listening to you talk about science-y stuff. It’s actually kinda… kinda cute.”  
Silence. I realized I’d actually said that last sentence aloud.  
“Um…I didn’t mean…When I said… Maybe ‘cute’ wasn’t what…” I stammered on for a little longer.  
“Thanks, I guess…?” he said. I could tell that I’d said the exact wrong thing, and racked my brain for things to quickly change the subject to. Clearly, he found the situation just as awkward as I did, because he suddenly asked me if I was going to be going anywhere this summer.  
“Not that I’m aware of…we have some family up in the mountains, but usually they visit us. And even then, they do so begrudgingly. Every time Aunt Ruth and Uncle Herbert visit, they critique our house, saying stuff like-“ I tried to do my best impression of Aunt Ruth, talking in a nasal, kind of whiny voice. “Those purple drapes again? You haven’t changed those since last Thanksgiving! Mahogany furniture? With an oak table! Honestly, Belle! You must be kidding! You know you’re supposed to dust the ceiling every 3 months…’”  
Jeff had already cracked up and was probably doubled over in laughter, but right around the time I was also laughing too hard to keep going, he cried out, “No more, Tony! I can’t breathe! That’s just too funny!!” When we were both able to catch our breath, I said, “Yeah, but it’s not so funny when you’re having to listen to that for 4 days! Every time Aunt Ruth comes over, she goes into my room and then stomps out and tells me to clean it up even though I make sure and clean every square inch before she comes over. She always watches me like a hawk when I’m cleaning like she wanted me to, and then tells me that I’m arranging the room all wrong. I’m just like, ‘Uh, lady, since WHEN is this your room?!’”  
“That’s the way my dad is,” Jeff chuckled knowingly. “He always wants me to clean my room his way, even though we have completely different organization styles! He prefers everything just randomly out in the open, whereas I prefer organizing stuff on the walls or in containers. One time, he actually knocked all of my tools that I use for working on computers off of the hangers and told me to just arrange them on my computer desk instead! On my computer desk! Isn’t that ridiculous? And what’s more, he insists on me ‘cleaning’ my room- his way, of course- almost on a weekly basis, even though as far as I can tell, he never cleans up his office! I remember once going in there to look for something for him, and I got lost in a mountain of paperwork! I actually found myself buried in tax returns! Don’t ask me how THAT happened… And later, he ran in there going, ‘I could have sworn I left my son somewhere around here!’ and he went past me like 5 times before I finally spoke up and yelled, ‘I’m under here! Getting crushed to death by tax returns!’”  
“Yeah, that sounds like something Uncle Herbert would do! He’s the exact opposite of Aunt Ruth!” I laughed to myself, remembering all those times that he tried telling Aunt Ruth to stop commandeering the cleanliness of our house, and she changed directions and yelled at him for a long time afterwards.  
There was a short period of silence, as we both tried to think of something to say. I thought of something else to talk about pretty much right away. I really hoped he wouldn’t be mad at me for saying it, but I said it anyway.  
“So…um, I was just wondering if…” I trailed off, searching for the right words.  
“Y-yes?” he asked.  
“Did you…want to come over to my house later today? We could… like, watch a movie or something…?” I asked, realizing that sounded kind of like a dead giveaway that I liked him. After all, that was something that boys and girls who were dating did.  
“Absolutely!” he exclaimed.   
“…Wait, what?” I incredulously asked.  
“I wasn’t going to do much of anything anyway. I figure spending time with you would be a pretty good way to start the summer off!” He seemed very happy about getting to see me again as soon as possible. This was a good sign. “So when should it be?”  
“Um…I don’t know…I guess maybe in about an hour?” I said.  
“Phenomenal! Wait…I don’t have your address.” There was the sound of paper rustling. “Okay, I’m ready. I want to write it down because I tend to forget anything I don’t write down.”  
“You know where Whistler Road is, right?” I asked.  
“Hmm…Whistler- oh! Yes, I believe I do! Right near that odd restaurant that serves food only on Sundays!” he exclaimed.  
“That’s the one. Second house on the left, with a little blue car and a really big black SUV that looks like something someone would drive in a spy movie,” I said.   
“Excellent! I anticipate to be there somewhere between an hour and 1 and a half hours from now,” he said. “Goodbye for now!”  
“Bye,” I said, hung up the phone, and spun around in joy.  
“Hey, Mom, guess what?” I ran into the kitchen crying out happily.  
“What is it?” she asked, putting away some dishes.  
I waited a few seconds for dramatic effect, then told her. “Jeff’s about to come over! Yeah, we’re going to watch a movie, and I don’t know what we’re going to do next, but he said he’ll be here in about an hour!”  
“That’s great, honey!” she said. “You’d better get started cleaning up.”  
“Aw! But, Mom! I need to find a movie for us to watch!” I cried out.  
She folded her arms across her chest. “Now, Tony, you know the rules. He who has guests gets to clean up before said guest comes over.”  
I sighed and quickly moved a few pairs of shoes into my bedroom, threw away all the candy wrappers somebody left under the couch- it was probably me, but I’ll blame my cousin Joshua for those- and dusted off as much of the furniture as I could. Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but when I get started cleaning- such as during spring cleaning- I just can’t stop. I keep finding stuff to clean, or stuff that I could adjust just a little bit. And of course, that happened this time. I felt like vacuuming the living room and the halls, and then I decided to wash the windows. I suddenly decided that straightening the bookshelves would be a good idea afterwards.   
Next thing I knew, while I was sweeping the dining room floor, the doorbell rang.   
“I’ll get it!” I hollered, dropping the broom and dustpan, and ran to the door as quickly as I could. I felt a little embarrassed because I was probably sweaty from all that cleaning I just did, but I opened the door anyway.  
“Well, hi there, Tony,” Jeff said. He looked so incredibly hot with his blue long-sleeved layered T-shirt with Yoda on it and his black skinny jeans and hiking boots, that I seriously forgot where I was, and what I was supposed to be doing. I was just standing there, staring at him and stuttering. “Y-you…uh…y-you look nice… uh…”  
My mom apparently walked over behind me at some point, because I heard her say, “Tony! Offer to let your guest in!”  
“Oh, uh, thanks, Mom…please, Jeff, come on in.” I stepped aside, and he gingerly stepped inside and looked around, as though he were visiting a museum or something. He inspected the décor, smiling and nodding.   
I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d pulled a blue ribbon out of his pocket and stuck it on the lamp, like how the judge at the art competition I entered in 4th grade would.  
Jeff looked around again, then turned to my mom. “You have a very nice house, Mrs. Edison,” he said. “It sure is nicer than mine.”  
“Oh, I’m sure yours is lovely too. Ours is just normal,” Mom mused. “But it’s what we got, and we all try to make the best we can with it.”  
“Yeah…so d-do you want to watch a movie now, or…? I asked, swaying around on my tiptoes a bit. I usually did this whenever I was talking to Jeff and felt like I was being too awkward- which happened almost all the time now.  
“I guess we could,” Jeff said, and looked out the sliding glass door at the backyard at the patio furniture and the few azalea plants that made up our garden.  
“Great!” I exclaimed, and threw a few pillows off of the couch and curled up in the spot that my dad usually claimed as his. Jeff sat where my mom would usually sit and lean on Dad’s shoulder- alas, Jeff didn’t do that to me this time. Instead, he just sat beside me, looking like he was too afraid to touch anything. He didn’t even move the throw pillow he ended up sitting on. I sat up straight in order to appear more classy, and put my hand on his shoulder.   
“You don’t have to treat this like you’re visiting the Parlimentary House,” I said, and smiled.   
He looked at me with his adorable aquamarine eyes, and shook his head a little bit. “I’m sorry, it’s just…I feel like…just…it’s sort of awkward for me, going to someone’s house for the first time.”  
“Oh. Um, I’m…sorry…” I stammered. I could definitely understand that.  
“No, no, it’s okay…I got, more or less, the same reaction the first time I went to Ness’s house. They told me I didn’t have to act like everything in the house was breakable.” He said the word “breakable” like he thought it was gibberish.  
I got up from the couch and knelt down in front of the TV, and opened up the cabinet underneath it.“Anyway, what do you want to watch? We don’t have much…uh, there’s a bunch of nature documentaries…some of those sad movies in black-and-white that Mom always watches- I don’t like those because they’re just so depressing- and…is that really it? Wow…uh, this is embarrassing. I would have thought we had more movies…” I said, looking on the bookshelves for DVDs that someone might have accidentally shoved in between the mystery novels my dad reads.   
“No, no, Tony. It’s fine. I love nature documentaries! Oh, you have the one about how some archaeologists found a complete Neanderthal skull in the bedrock under Lake Tess!” Jeff had gotten up, and spread all the cases for the nature documentaries out on the floor. He was reading the descriptions on the back of the cases.  
“I don’t think I’ve ever watched these, so I’m really okay with any of them,” I said.   
“Here, let’s watch this one,” Jeff said, handing me a case with a picture of a family of bears on it.   
When he took the disk out of the case and handed it to me, he accidentally brushed his fingers against mine.   
“Oh, oops, I’m sorry,” Jeff muttered, and quickly pulled his hand away.  
“No, it’s fine…” I tried to hide the fact that I was blushing. I jammed the DVD into the player and started it.  
We both climbed back onto the couch to watch the documentary. I can’t exactly say I paid attention to it like Jeff did- because I was too busy paying attention to Jeff instead. Every few seconds, I’d look over at him, almost like I was checking to see if he was still there. At one point, I caught myself trying to hold his hand, and had to force myself to put my hand back at my side.  
An hour later, the credits appeared on the TV screen.  
“How interesting! I’ve always wondered how those cameramen get so close to the bears without them becoming agitated…” Jeff mused.  
“Yeah, it’s weird,” I said. I kind of hated myself for liking Jeff so much, because I had realized I didn’t really know how to be just friendly with him. I figured I would probably have to teach myself how. “We should do this again really soon, Jeff.”  
“Absolutely! Say, do you know what time it is?” he asked. “Dad…um, Dr. Andonuts is going to come pick me up around 8…”  
“It’s almost 7:50 now. Do you want to wait outside?” I asked him.  
“Okay,” he said.  
“Do you want some ice cream?” I suggested, remembering that there were some fudge pops in the freezer.  
“Absolutely!” Jeff said.  
I gave him one of the fudge pops and got one for myself. We went outside and sat on the porch, watching the sunset.  
Right at around the time we’d finished our fudge pops, the sun had disappeared below the horizon and the streetlights came on, and a classic car pulled into the driveway. An older man with thinning hair and thick glasses was driving. He looked over at Jeff and honked the horn.  
“Well, my father’s here,” Jeff said, and got up. “It was really great getting to spend time with you.”   
“Bye, Jeff,” I said, and waved at him as he got into the car and they drove away.


	7. Chapter 7

Jeff and I talked on the phone every single day we got, and he came over to my house to watch nature documentaries at least 3 times a week.   
In the middle of the summer, after finding out that Jeff enjoyed looking at the stars at night, I had an amazing idea for something for the two of us to do. I racked my brain for what the tallest building in our province of Winters was, and eventually decided that the roof of Snow Wood would probably be the tallest and darkest spot around for miles. It took lots of asking for permission from my parents, and eventually I got the all-clear.  
I showed up to Jeff’s house one day at 8:00, right after the sun had set. He answered the door in a similar outfit to what he wore the first time he visited my house, except instead of a Yoda T-shirt, he had on a red hooded sweatshirt.  
“I’m not trying to be rude, Tony, but I was under the impression you’d be here earlier…” he had informed me when he answered the door.  
“Yeah, but I have a surprise for you, Jeff! Come on, you’re really going to like it,” I said.   
He went back inside, then came back out, stuffing a cordless phone into his pocket. “He said I could only go if I brought my reciever phone with me,” Jeff said.   
I led him out to my mom’s car, and after we both got in, Mom drove us out past the natural history museum, past the library, and past the mall.  
“Um…where are we going?” Jeff asked.  
As soon as he saw the imposing gates and huge stone fence, he knew exactly where we were.  
“The school? Why-“ Jeff began to ask.  
“You’ll see when we get there!” I exclaimed, giggling a little.  
As Snow Wood looks like it was built right around when the colonies that became Winters were established almost 400 years ago, it would have looked like a haunted mansion tonight, were it not for the ladders and generators around back.  
Jeff and I went through the gates- which for some reason, were still open in the summer- and I started climbing up the ladder on the side of the building that the janitors climbed up to scrape the bird droppings off of the roof.  
“Why are we- nevermind,” Jeff said. I couldn’t see him behind me, but I could tell he was probably rolling his eyes and thinking, “Just tell me why we’re here!”  
I was at the top before he was, and stood at the railing.  
“Come on, Jeff, you’ve got to see this!” I exclaimed.  
Jeff scrambled up the ladder and ran to the railing with me.   
Before both of us was all of Winters. I could see the lights from the mall and surrounding neighborhoods, and on the horizon was distant Fourside City in Eagleland, with its characteristic spotlights and bright white glow. The streets snaked their way around the landscape, and a few glowing points of light on the asphalt rivers were the people driving to and from night jobs.   
“Wow!” Jeff gasped, in awe of the view.   
I could hardly believe my eyes, either. I knew the view would be amazing, but I had no idea how wonderful it would truly be.  
“That’s not what I brought you out here to see. Look up,” I said, and pointed at the sky. It was full of more stars than I had ever thought existed. There were so many stars out, it looked like glitter. The full moon cast an ethereal bright blue glow on everything, and it seemed to bring out the beauty of the view even more.   
“Amazing! There’s the Big Dipper! I never would have thought that the best place to stargaze is on the roof of the school! Thank you, Tony,” he said.  
The blue moonlight lit up his aquamarine eyes, which sparkled with wonder, and cast elegant shadows on his hair.   
I put my hand on Jeff’s shoulder, presumably to tell him something, and the next thing I knew, my lips were pressed against his.  
When I’d realized I was kissing him, I nearly passed out from sheer mental overload. But what stood out more was that he hadn’t pulled away in disgust. I leaned in and threw my arms around him, but I realized his face was wet. I pulled away and saw his tears glistening in the moonlight.  
“I-I’m sorry…I’m not that bad at kissing, am I?” I asked, laughing nervously.  
Jeff wiped at his eyes and sniffled.  
“N-no…it was the opposite. It was…p-perfect. Too perfect.” He tried not to let himself sob.  
“What’s wrong, then?” I asked.  
“D-Dad…what would he think?” Jeff wailed in anguish. I held him close to me and kissed him on the top of his head, which only seemed to make him cry harder.  
“He’s one of those people who…who really hates gay people. And it always embarrassed me, but…I never thought it’d be such an issue…he’d think it was a capital crime if I kissed a boy on the roof of the school.” Jeff sniffled and stared at the woods off in the distance.  
“I’m sorry…I didn’t know…” I said, and backed away from him.  
He reached out for me again. “No, Tony. He’s-he’s not here. What he doesn’t know…can’t hurt us… we can be together in secret. Where he’s not, we can be.”  
“Y-you mean, just tell your dad we’re both straight? That we don’t like each other?” I was also starting to cry now, because the full weight of the situation I’d just put Jeff in had hit me full-force.  
“Affirmative,” he said. “I know that you feel like this is your fault. It’s not, Tony. None of this was your fault. Thank you for doing that. I’d been blind to the fact that you liked me, and it turns out that this whole time I’d felt the same way!”   
“But why can’t we just tell your dad? I mean, he couldn’t do anything THAT bad to you that wasn’t illegal!” I exclaimed, unsure of what to do. I mean, I loved Jeff. I wanted to be in a relationship with him, and he felt the same way about me. But the issue of his dad’s homophobia loomed like a big mountain in front of us, impossible to ignore.  
He looked up at me once again, tears and determination in his eyes.  
“Tony, the only way we can be together is if we keep it secret. Don’t even tell your parents. I know for sure they’ll tell my dad. I really hope that we end up staying together until college, because then we can both tell our families and then make our getaway just as the coronary hits. We’ll be home free then. It’s just 4 more years to wait…” Jeff sighed deeply and stared off into space.  
“But my parents won’t be mad. They already know…ah! I’m so sorry! I’m gloating, aren’t I?” I turned away a little bit.  
“No…but that’s the issue. They don’t see two boys being in a relationship any different than a relationship between a boy and a girl. They’ll be so excited that they’ll innocently call up my dad and thank him for letting us date. But he won’t have- and of course we both know how well that would end,” Jeff said. “But none of that matters.” He put his arms around me. “The only thing that matters is how we feel about each other.”  
I hugged him back. “I don’t ever want to let go of you…” I said.  
We silently made a promise that night to be forever faithful to each other, now that we were more than friends.


	8. Chapter 8

None of our next few get-togethers were ever “dates”, per se. But today, I’d managed to work up the courage to ask him to go with me to the park. 2 weeks after we’d kissed on the roof of Snow Wood, we were going on our first date- that we both were going to treat as a date.   
“I just don’t know what to wear…” I said to Jeff on the phone, shortly after I’d asked him out.  
“Don’t wear anything too fancy. We are going to the park, after all. Just wear…something that…would…be normal,” Jeff said. I assumed that his dad walked in right about when the rest of his sentence became stilted and awkward.  
“Okay, I’ll do that. See you then. Bye,” I said, and hung up the phone.  
“Was that Jeff?” my mom asked. She just came into the room to bring me some clean laundry.  
“Yeah, it was. We’re going to the park later,” I said.  
“You know, you’ve been telling me for pretty much forever that you like him. You never did tell him, did you, Tony?” my mom asked.  
“Well…uh…I did. I told him that night we looked at the stars on the roof of the school,” I awkwardly stammered.  
“And? What did he say?” my mom excitedly asked me.  
“Uh…he…didn’t exactly give me a clear answer…” I tried to make something up that wouldn’t prove whether or not we were in a relationship.  
She sighed. “Well, let’s just hope he’s still trying to decide and that he really does like you!” She gave me a hug and left the room.  
As I left for the park, all I could think about was how much I wished that Jeff’s dad was more like my parents. They accepted the way I was and respected everyone else’s ways of life even if they weren’t part of it. I knew my parents would probably jump around with joy if they knew that Jeff felt the same way about me that I did about him. It was because of Dr. Andonuts that I couldn’t tell them! I never even met the man (unless you count seeing him once or twice whenever he came to get Jeff from my house after watching nature documentaries), and already I was beginning to hate his guts.  
When I arrived at the park, I saw Jeff right there by the entrance, waiting for me. I ran up to him and gave him a hug.   
“It’s a miracle my dad let me go here,” Jeff said, adjusting his glasses. “Ever since he read about how in Eagleland, some weird stuff happened in a park there, he’s been suspicious about parks! He thinks I’m going to get mugged by a hippie or something like that.”  
“Wait…Mugged? By a hippie? Isn’t that an oxymoron?” I asked, giggling a little. “I’m not being rude, but aren’t hippies all like ‘Let’s spread peace and love and harmony!’ Don’t they want everyone to get along and pick flowers?”  
“That’s what I thought, too! But apparently that’s not the truth. Let’s go,” he said, pointing down the sidewalk. He grabbed my hand and we started walking.  
He looked over at me, smiling, then squeezed my hand gently.  
Blushing a bit, I did the same.  
“It’s so nice to not get yelled at because we’re both boys,” Jeff said. “Of course, I never knew that it was a possibility that his intense homophobia would ever be directed at me. Actually, I think it goes beyond mere fear of the unknown…I don’t know what it is actually.”  
“Ignorance?” I suggested, remembering my dad’s words from long ago, when I asked him why a college professor would rob a bank when it was on the news. “A P.hD doesn’t always mean complete understanding of everything. It doesn’t mean that for sure he won’t attack anything he doesn’t understand.”  
Jeff looked at me, surprised. For a moment, I was afraid I’d offended him. I knew I shouldn’t have called his father ignorant. If my dad was that bad, I’d probably secretly agree, but at the same time, feel an obligatory family loyalty.  
“Jeff, I’m sorry. I didn’t-“   
He interrupted me. “Tony, that’s exactly what it must be! It fits perfectly. He sees male-female couples, and he is attracted to females, so he assumes that because things are that way, and it’s the only way he’s known, that’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s how it has to be. And he sees anyone deviating from that as going against nature. Being overly radical. Ruining the intricate system. It’s been ingrained in him for so long that there’s no way he’s going to suddenly change his feelings because his son is what he hated the most and tried so hard to protect him from.” He stopped walking and stared at a willow tree, dancing in the breeze. It was free to do whatever it wanted, cheerful as ever, and nobody would ever run up and yell at it to stop being a willow and turn into a cedar instead, or to quit letting the wind blow its leaves around- unlike us. “The truth is, all my life I’ve been trying to impress him, to no avail. I was in the top 10% in test scores every year, and he never told me, ‘Good job, son, let’s go get some ice cream!’ Not even a pat on the back or a high five! All he did was say ‘hmm,’ and go back to working on his inventions! The man never really liked me to begin with, and…and now he’s going to hate me for who I am…” He broke down crying. I held him close to me, and whispered, “It’s going to be okay. I just know it.” All the while, I was praying with all my heart that the stuff I said would end up being true.   
Eventually, he calmed down. “I…I just hope we can do something to at least delay him doing to us what astatine does on contact with the air…”  
I had no idea what he was talking about as far as the astatine thing went, but I knew exactly what he meant to say with that scientific analogy.  
The rest of our walk around the park was more of the same- holding hands while talking about how we wished we didn’t have to keep our relationship a secret, and occasionally switching the subject to what we wanted to do as far as careers went or, even stranger, what breed of cat we’d like to be if we were to suddenly get turned into cats. When he asked me that, I told him that I’d like to be a really fast one, because we’d probably end up getting dumped off at the pound by the city for being in the park without collars. Jeff agreed, and we were both laughing so hard we could barely breathe by the time we’d made a full circle around the park.  
He glanced at his calculator watch. “Oh no…” he said.  
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.   
“It’s almost 4:00. My dad said that’s what time I have to head home.”  
“No… we just got here!” I exclaimed.  
“I know…but if it’s not raining, can we do this again tomorrow? I really liked getting to talk to you some more,” he said, and kissed me on the cheek. “I wish I could stay longer, but I have to go now…Dad’s really strict about punctuality, too.” He started walking in the other direction.  
I watched him until he turned the corner by a bank and I couldn’t see him anymore, then decided to walk home myself.


	9. Chapter 9

Dr. Andonuts must have figured out how to control the weather, because when I woke up the next morning, the storm of the century was going on. The rain outside poured down in sheets, blown by the strong winds. My face pressed against the ice-cold glass, I sighed heavily, then went into the living room and turned on the TV to check the weather. That didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know- just that it was going to rain all day.  
“Grr…” I muttered under my breath, and sat on the couch, pouting, until about 5 minutes later, the phone rang.  
“I’ll get it!” I cried out, nearly shoving my dad out of the way to get to the phone and see who it was. I picked up the reciever. “Hello?” I cooed.  
“Hi…” Jeff said, sighing heavily.  
“So looks like he-who-shall-not-be-named got his way today…and we can’t go to the park again… and…” I trailed off, staring out the window and trying to think of things to do instead.  
“Maybe…” Jeff paused for a while. “Maybe we could like…have a real date…” he whispered.   
“A real date?” I asked, then nearly jumped out of my skin when I noticed my mom was right behind me.   
“Ah… You REALLY went to the movies with the head cheerleader yesterday? Good for you, Jeff!” I overdramatically blurted out, then looked behind me and mouthed “Not good at all”.  
My mom sighed and mouthed at me, “We’ll talk about it when you’re off the phone,” threw some junk mail in the trash, then left the room.  
“Yeah…cheerleader…” Jeff questioningly said.  
“I’m sorry, Mom was right behind me and I didn’t notice until it was too late! I had to say something.” I whispered. “Anyway, what do you mean by that, a real date?”  
“I mean like…you know…dinner…movies…stuff like that…something fancy…”  
“Fancy?” I asked, way too loudly again. I came up with a more creative bluff this time, though- “Your dad’s taking you to a fancy restaurant later this week? Wow! I wish my dad took me to fancy restaurants more often.”  
“I wish,” he snorted.  
“Much better save, wasn’t it?” I whispered.   
“Yes…anyway, listen, Tony! I got some extra money from my job and I was thinking we could go and get dinner somewhere fancy,” he quickly muttered.   
“You have a job?” I asked.  
“Yeah, sometimes, Dad- uhh, Dr. Andonuts’s lab pays me money to go up there and alphabetize a few reports and stuff like that,” he explained.   
“Anyway, what time should we go to dinner?” I asked.  
“I was thinking something like 6:30,” he said. “Don’t wear your fancy outfit outside, lest either our parents get suspicious. Just wear something regular, I’ll meet you there, and we’ll go into the bathrooms and change there. I…I gotta go for now. Hey! It’s the Italian restaurant at the corner of Main Street and Rutherford Avenue! See you then. Goodbye!” He hung up the phone.  
I had no idea what to tell my parents I was really doing. A boy like Jeff, whose parents thought he liked girls, could easily pull this off and say that it was just a friendly get-together. Not me. They already knew I liked boys. They already knew how I felt about Jeff. And they’re not dumb- they’d know exactly what it meant that we were going to a fancy restaurant together.  
I wandered into my room and sprawled out on my bed, my face buried in the pillows. What excuse would I use this time? That provoked more anger at Dr. Andonuts for causing me to have to start making excuses. But before I could be angry any longer, my mom knocked on the door.   
“Can I come in, dear?” she asked in a very calm voice.  
“Okay,” I said, and sat up on the edge of my bed.  
She opened the door and sat next to me. Staring at the ceiling for a few moments, she muttered something like, “Oh, dear Lord, please help us both,” and turned back to me. “Tony…I’m sorry…”  
“About what, Mom?” I asked.  
“About Jeff going on a date with a girl,” she stated.  
Oh. Oops. I’d forgotten I was supposed to be distraught because he was in a relationship with a pretend pretty popular girl.  
“Mom…it’s fine…because…he introduced me to one of his friends when we were at the park yesterday,” I fibbed. I really shouldn’t be talking with my parents about the status of my friendship with Jeff during a thunderstorm, but it was too late. I had to finish the lie I’d started telling- and not forget about it, like I just did with the cheerleader thing.  
“Oh!” my mom exclaimed. “What’s he like?”  
“Well…he’s also kinda smart and bookish…but he’s not as into technology as Jeff is. His name’s…Adam,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d say this, but he’s actually a little cuter than Jeff. And here’s the best part- I know he likes boys for sure! I heard him talking to Jeff about how he recently broke up with his boyfriend and wants a new one. Plus…he said I was kind of cute.”  
She hugged me. “That’s amazing, Tony!”   
“And Adam…invited me to a concert tonight! It’s at 6:30!” I exclaimed. I’d never found a better excuse within an excuse before. If I was going to be secretly dating the hottest guy in Winters, I had to get good at making excuses- and I was already well on my way there.  
“Who’s performing?” Mom asked.  
“Uh…the Runaway Five,” I said, remembering their name from Ness and Paula talking about their first “non-date” in Twoson, Paula’s hometown in Eagleland.  
“The Runaway Five? Didn’t they retire?” my mom asked.  
“No, they didn’t!” I blurted out. “They decided to hold a comeback tour…first stop is here- downtown, to be exact.”  
“Well, sounds like you’ve got a fun night ahead of you!” My mom patted me on the back and then looked over at my alarm clock. “You’ve got 2 hours until it’s 6:00. Better start thinking about what you’re going to wear!” she reminded me.  
“I will, Mom. Thanks!” I said, and she left.  
I found the fancy suit that I wore to Grandpa Dylan’s second wedding last year and took it out of the dust-protecting bag my mom had put it in, and found the corsage that went with it. The slacks and blazer were black, and the shirt was white with a navy-blue trim on the collar. At the time, I was embarrassed to wear it because I thought it made me look too much like my dad, but now, after trying it on to see how it looked after a year, I thought it made me look very refined and fancy- like the type of gentleman who goes to fancy restaurants every day. Quickly, I changed into some cargo shorts and a T-shirt with a panda bear on it that my mom had gotten me last time we’d gone to the zoo, and folded the suit up and stuffed it quickly into a tote bag my mom got free from some store at the outlet mall.  
I went into the living room to use the phone and call Jeff, so I could explain the update to the plans due to my excuse. We agreed to meet at the opera theater within walking distance, and be picked up there too.  
I spent the rest of the two hours re-reading one of my favorite books, then my mom knocked on the door. “It’s 6:05, honey,” she called out. “Let’s go.”  
I grabbed the tote bag and sprinted to the front door.  
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the bag, car keys in hand.  
“Oh, this? Adam left his hoodie at the park, and I wanted to return it to him. I put it in here so it wouldn’t get wrinkled,” I explained. I know it sounded ridiculous to say I put something in a bag to keep it from getting wrinkled, but I couldn’t think of any other reasons to be bringing a tote bag to a Runaway Five concert.  
“So where is the concert again?” my mom asked as we got into the car.  
“It’s at the opera theater,” I said.  
I was too excited to speak on the drive there. “Alright, Tony…have fun. Hey, do I get to meet Adam tonight?” she asked when we arrived at the opera theater.  
I pretended to look around. “Looks like he’s not here yet…he said he’d be getting here a bit late.”  
“Oh, okay…well, tell him hi for me!” she exclaimed. “Goodbye!” She gave me a hug and I got out of the car. It wasn’t long before I spotted the somewhat rusted silver sedan Dr. Andonuts drove. As Jeff got out of the car when they’d stopped at the curb, I could hear his dad nagging him about stuff that he’d probably reminded him about 7 times already: “Remember, you have to stay with Tony and the others. I don’t want you getting caught alone. That’s how kids your age get hurt…look, just be sensible. And don’t forget- be out here at 8:30 sharp!”   
“Okay, Dad,” he said, and got out of the car, also carrying a bag. “I’ll see you then.”  
“Oh, wait! It’s almost flu season! Make sure you’re washing your hands a lot!!” Dr. Andonuts cried out as he was driving away. “And don’t forget to ask your date if she’s gotten sick recently. I don’t…” His grating voice trailed off as he disappeared down the street.  
“Sorry about that, Tony…I wanted to get here earlier, but someone…” Jeff said, glaring down the street in the general direction Dr. Andonuts had driven off in.  
“No, no, it’s fine,” I said. “Let’s go get ready for the concert, ‘Adam’.”   
He laughed and we went inside, then into the bathroom. Of course, we had arrived during an intermission of some play, and the bathroom was incredibly crowded. It was a miracle we were able to find two empty stalls for us to change in. Then it would be a question of navigating the crowd of tired-looking old men who kept checking their watches and mumbling about being late for something-or-another without messing up our fancy suits.  
“How about we just wait until some of these people leave?” I shouted across the bathroom- Jeff had ended up changing really far away from me.   
“Okay!” he shouted back. Somebody shushed him.  
“Hey, don’t shush him!” I whispered indigantly. “Fine,” I said audibly immediately afterwards.  
It took 10 minutes for the crowd to finally get out of there- during which time, several people kept on knocking on the stall door I was in and asking if I was done yet, which I found incredibly annoying. What on earth made them think that, if I was actually using the bathroom, that would have made me go any faster?  
“Okay, I think the bathroom’s mostly empty now,” I called out. We both unlocked the stall doors and walked to the area with the mirrors and sinks, our casual clothes in the tote bags already.  
“Oh…wow…you look very nice, Tony,” Jeff said, blushing and turning away a little in that cute, geeky way he does.  
“So do you…” I said, trying to imitate his shy cuteness but miserably failing, probably.  
“Um…there’s a cowlick right on top of your head, you know this, right?” he asked.  
I looked in the mirror. Sure enough, one frizzy piece of hair was sticking out at a 90-degree angle from the top of my head.  
“Rats!” I exclaimed, and tried to comb it out with my fingers. All that did was make it worse.  
“It’s okay,” Jeff said. “I brought a comb.” He held it out to me, then drew it back. “Um…may I fix your hair, Tony?” he asked.   
“Of course,” I said, and he ran his hands under the water in the sink, then ran his fingers through my hair. “This happens to me all the time. I found out…” I quit listening to him, and mostly stared at his reflection in the mirror, then noticed the totally stupid, cartoony lovestruck face I was making.   
“I look so funny,” I snickered.  
“What?” Jeff asked.  
“Oh, no, no, I wasn’t insulting what you were doing…I actually really like it so far. I was just…making a silly face by accident…” Embarrassed, I stared down at the dark gray marble countertop.  
A few minutes later, he was done. My hair looked absolutely perfect.  
“Wow! I love it. Thank you so much, Jeff,” I said, fluffing my hair out a little.  
“Let’s go now,” he said, and we walked out of the bathrooms.  
After asking the ticket-taker guy to hold our bags for us until we got back from dinner, we walked down the street together, holding hands and enjoying the cool evening air.  
“If only we really were going to an outdoor concert tonight,” I said, looking up at the sunset.  
“But we’re going on our first fancy date!” Jeff exclaimed.  
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean I didn’t want to go to dinner with you! I was just saying it’s a really nice night. The kind of night that’d be perfect for an outdoor concert or whatever,” I explained quickly.  
“Oh. Why, yes, it is,” he said.  
We crossed the street and arrived at the restaurant, and I held the door for Jeff. For some reason, I’d figured that the restaurant would be crowded, but for whatever reason, most of the tables were empty.  
“I suppose maybe everyone’s attending the play across the street?” Jeff hypothesized.  
Eventually, the waiter showed up and led us to a table by the window. Glaring down at us, he asked us what we wanted to drink.   
I asked for a soda, and Jeff asked for grape juice.   
“He seemed a little snobbish,” I whispered after the waiter had left.  
“That’s because this is a fancy restaurant. Normally, kids don’t come in here without their parents. For some reason, he’s one of those people who think that just because we’re not adults yet, we’re immature,” he explained. “I think he would rather we have brought our parents with us, but there’s no laws saying that kids can’t go to fancy restaurants alone.”  
The waiter brought out our drinks in glasses that looked like they cost an unbelievable amount of money. “Would you be interested in any appetizers?” he asked, rolling his eyes. He was looking at Jeff when he asked, so he didn’t see when I rolled my eyes back at him, but Jeff saw, so he stifled a laugh- probably making the waiter even madder.  
I glanced down at the menu, and almost choked on my soda when I saw the price for just a basket of breadsticks.  
“Uh…probably not…” I said, trying not to look surprised.  
The waiter walked away and sighed heavily about how “uncultured” I was.  
“I’m sorry, Jeff, but I didn’t think that was a fair price for breadsticks!” I whispered after the waiter left.  
“I agree, but almost everything here’s priced like that. But don’t worry, I can afford it. And what’s more is, it’s well worth it, according to Doctor Andonuts…um, Dad. He says this is where he went with Mom for their first date,” Jeff said. “It’s fine, though. I really didn’t want any breadsticks. They’re almost always the same at every restaurant.”  
I read over the menu again, squinting at the tiny, fancy cursive font. Muttering about how hard it was to read, I finally settled on what looked the most reasonably priced- lasagna. I never really cared for it that time my grandparents visited and my mom cooked some lasagna for them, but then again, it was probably because, according to Mom, she was missing half of the ingredients she needed and didn’t feel like going to the store.  
The waiter finally came back to our table, looking down at us disdainfully. “Are you ready to order?” he asked, a snobbish tone in his voice.   
“Yes,” Jeff answered. I nodded.  
The waiter sighed and took out a notepad. “And WHAT would you like to eat?” he asked impatiently.  
“Uh, the lasagna…” I said, avoiding his disdainful glare. Yeesh. I definitely wasn’t going to tip him.  
“And I think I’ll have the chicken alfredo,” Jeff said. We gave our menus to the waiter.  
“Fine, then, that’ll be out soon,” the waiter said, and stormed off towards another table.   
“Wow…rude,” I whispered as he took another table’s order. They had a toddler with them, and I tried not to laugh when she threw an ice cube at him.   
“Tell me about it,” Jeff sighed. “I’m not tipping him.”  
“Me neither!” I said, snickering a little. “It just figures that my first time at a fancy restaurant we got a really rude waiter.”


	10. Chapter 10

I don’t know whether I just got too confident because of the amazing success we’d had a few days ago with our second date, or whether it was because two days after the date in question, Jeff had suggested when we were on the phone, trying to gradually inform his dad of our relationship by becoming more affectionate around him over time, but I think it’s safe to say that today, we both let ourselves get carried away- and it ended up destroying everything that we’d worked so hard to keep alive.  
I’d called Jeff this morning, and after talking about nothing of real importance for a few minutes, I felt the need to ask Jeff an at-the-time innocent question. “You know, we’ve been friends for a while now, and I don’t think I’ve ever visited your house before,” I suggested. “At least, not actually going inside.”  
“I do believe you’re right! And I have a suggestion to make- let’s change that. Maybe you should visit my house later today, perhaps around 2,” he said.  
“That sounds great! Wait, could you and your dad come get me instead of my parents driving me over there? My mom’s got some work stuff to do and she’s taking the car. My dad would drive me in the other car, but there’s something wrong with that car’s brakes,” I said.  
“That’s definitely a predicament,” Jeff said. “I’ll ask him now.” He put the phone down to go into the other room and ask, and I waited anxiously for a few minutes.  
“Sorry about that,” Jeff said when he came back. “I couldn’t find him! It turns out he was in the backyard. But at least he was finally replacing the broken fence board. I’ve been begging him ever since I noticed it was missing when I was six to put a new one there. My room faces the backyard, and one night, I saw an opossum sneak through the hole in the fence and take some of the unripe berries off of the strawberry plants that we were growing back then! I…well, I’m kind of afraid of opossums, so it came as a huge relief to see that the hole in the fence was gone. I no longer have to fear that an opossum will break into my room and give me some sort of horrible disease! Anyway, before I go off on another tangent, Dad said yes, and we’re supposed to leave in a few minutes. We live kind of far away from your house. We’ll probably be there in about…an hour maybe?”  
“Yes!” I cheered. “I’ll see you then.”  
“Love you,” Jeff said, then gasped in surprise. “Ohh…!! I didn’t-“  
In the background, I heard Dr. Andonuts ask in a condescending tone, “Who are you talking to, Jeff?”  
“It’s…uh…Aunt Jane,” Jeff said. “But she’s really busy, so she can’t talk any longer.”  
“Oh! Can I speak to her?” Dr. Andonuts asked.  
I facepalmed, hoping somehow Jeff would get me out of having to spontaneously develop perfect voice acting skills in 5 seconds.  
“But she just said she has to go to work,” Jeff quipped. “She did say hi, though.”  
I have no idea what else he said after that, because I heard a click and the dial tone. Jeff must have hung up the phone out of panic.  
I put the reciever back on the phone base and started pacing around the room, worrying my head off. This was definitely the closest call that Jeff and I have ever had to getting our secret relationship found out about. And normally, Jeff never said “I love you” on the phone to me- he’s always said it when we were together in person. Why did he choose right then to say it on the phone? And what did Dr. Andonuts make of this? I hoped and prayed with all my heart that he bought the ruse and thought Jeff had told his aunt he loves her, and didn’t say it to me.  
A few minutes later, my mom came into the room. Noticing me pacing around, she asked me what was wrong. “I’m just killing time until Jeff and his dad get here. He invited me over,” I muttered.  
“What? I thought you’d be happy about that,” she curiously asked.  
“I am.” I jammed my hands into the pockets of my jeans, turned around and started pacing in the other direction.  
“Well, then, pray tell, Tony: What are you pacing for? I know you. You only pace around like that when you’re really worried about something. And you’ve been worried a lot lately. Did you and Jeff have a falling-out?” Mom pulled up a chair from the dining room table, put it right in front of the bookshelves, and sat down to watch me pace around the living room.  
“What?” I asked. I stopped pacing and stared at her.  
“Did you guys have an argument or something like that? If you did, you should probably tell me so I can help you out. He’s your best friend, and a guy like him doesn’t come around that often,” Mom suggested.  
“It’s not about Jeff!” I exclaimed, and started pacing again. I had just told an almost-true lie. I wasn’t upset about anything Jeff had done, I was upset about what his dad had done and said. I was upset because if Jeff and I were to be in a relationship, we had to do it secretly and neither of us could ever relax.  
“Hey! Attitude, young man!” Mom scolded me.  
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly.   
Changing her attitude completely from fussing at me for getting upset with her, she asked sweetly, “Then what’s wrong, honey? I don’t ever like to see you upset, and there’s something making you really upset. I can see it in your eyes.”  
“It’s…just that…Adam and I were supposed to go out but he said he had family stuff going on, and I don’t believe him. I think he’s going to cheat,” I lied.  
“What makes you think that?” Mom asked, adjusting the sleeves on her blouse.  
“Last time he told me that I was the only boy he’d ever love, he was staring off into space instead of looking at me when he said it,” I said.  
She proceeded to give me a lecture about trust and relationships, explaining that I shouldn’t be concerned about that yet because he hasn’t shown enough signs that there’s another boy in the picture yet, and that if I stressed out about this enough, Adam would think I was being creepy and paranoid and it’d ruin our relationship.  
Just as I thought that this conversation would never end, the doorbell rang.   
“Oh, I bet that Jeff’s here now,” I said, going towards the door. “I’ll see you within a few hours. I’ll call you if I need anything.” I opened the door, left and closed it behind me. Mom was trying to bring her lecture about trust to a conclusion, but I left anyway.  
“Hi, Tony,” Jeff said. He had been standing over to the right of the doorway. “Are you ready to go?”  
“Absolutely,” I said. Looking around suspiciously, I whispered to him, “How’d the incident with the phone call go over?”  
“He bought it. He was a little suspicious about why I kept insisting that Aunt Jane couldn’t talk because every time she calls, she does it to talk his ear off with all sorts of miscellaneous gossip, but he believed me. That was a close call,” he whispered.   
“Well, I don’t believe we’ve been formerly introduced,” Dr. Andonuts said when I’d walked up to the car. He had a gruff but somewhat nasal-sounding voice, as if he was still getting over a cold. “The name’s Dr. Steven P. Andonuts. You might recognize my name if you read any major scientific journals…”  
He continued blathering on about his scientific achievements as Jeff and I got into the car and buckled our seatbelts. We sat there waiting in the driveway for another 4 minutes until Jeff finally turned to his father and said, “Listen, I’m not trying to be rude, but I don’t think Tony really wants to listen to the story of how you made an advance in high-speed subway car rails. Can we just go back to the house?”   
“Am I embarrassing you or something?” Dr. Andonuts asked almost incredulously, putting the car in gear.  
“Uh…just a little.” Jeff replied.  
For the most part, the rest of the car ride was silent, broken only by the disturbing rattling sounds that the air-conditioner made whenever someone adjusted it. Dr. Andonuts couldn’t decide whether he wanted it on or off, so every few seconds, he’d spin the dial with a loud clinking and rattling sound, accompanied by the sound of squealing tires whenever Dr. Andonuts made a turn. To be honest, that was undoubtedly the scariest car ride I’ve ever been on. Most people make a conscious effort, when they drive, to make sure they slow down in advance before turning. Not Dr. Andonuts. When he saw a street he needed to turn on, he waited until he was directly at the turn, then slammed on the brakes and skidded through the turn at the last possible second. But it wasn’t just when he turned that he drove dangerously. Any chance he could, he drove as fast as possible, and barely paid any attention to where other drivers were. Three times, I thought that we were for sure going to get into a wreck, but all of those times, Dr. Andonuts narrowly avoided it.  
By the time we’d arrived at their house, I was thoroughly sick to my stomach.  
“He’s a really, really bad driver,” Jeff whispered to me as we walked up the path to the tidy little white house.  
“I gathered that much,” I muttered back, trying to concentrate on not letting my breakfast make a reappearance in their front flower garden.  
Dr. Andonuts unlocked the front door and held it open for us. “Come on in, boys. It’s a bit messy, but…ah, I’ve been busy all day…and I seem to have forgotten completely what I was working on before we’d left!” he said, scratching his mustache.  
I walked into their living room, and the first thing I noticed was how many computerized gadgets were on everything. Cords were strewn about the hardwood floor, and there was a metallic smell about the place. Jeff had been right about how small his house was- it seemed to be roughly half the size of mine. The house also looked remarkably plain- no paintings or anything like that. Save for the fact that there were computers everywhere, it looked almost like a furnished apartment that nobody lived in yet. But while they really didn’t care about fanciness and décor as much as my family did, they still kept it very clean and organized. While I was looking at the kitchen, wondering to myself why Dr. Andonuts felt the need to put a PC right next to the refrigerator, Jeff grabbed my arm.   
“Come on, I’d like to show you all the computers I’ve fixed in my free time! I have all these old computers, and I figured you’d like to see them,” he said, leading me down the hallway to his room.  
“Okay, I guess I’ll just be…ah…in the garage, doing some stuff…” Dr. Andonuts called out after us.  
Even before we’d actually gone into his room, I could see from in the hallway through the open door that inside Jeff’s room were more computers than an electronics store. There was barely room for Jeff’s bed and dresser among all the technology, and a screen was mounted on pretty much every surface. There were miscellaneous computer parts in boxes on the floor, and on one of the tables, partially hidden by some technical-looking drawings, wires and servos, was a microscope and some chemistry stuff. Mounted on his wall was a bookshelf, and there were all sorts of thick books in it. They had titles like “Nuclear Physics Explained”, “Robot Programming for Beginners”, “Advanced Robotics”, and “On the Solar System”. Nestled in between the books carefully, however, there were also a few video games and vintage comic books in plastic sleeves.  
“Whoa! Your room must be worth a billion dollars!” I gasped in awe, looking around.   
Jeff chuckled shyly a bit and glanced at all the technology, removing a sock from a shiny silver tower computer. “I think that might be a bit hyperbole…but I challenge anyone at Snow Wood to have more technology than we do here. I even challenge the school itself to have more technology!” he said.  
“I don’t know, Jeff…you took computer programming, so you’ve seen the computer lab…” I added.  
Laughing, Jeff recanted his previous statement. “Okay, maybe not more than the school. But there’s at least as many computers in here as are in one of their computer labs.”  
“That’s better,” I said jokingly.  
“Do you want me to tell you how I got all these computers?” Jeff asked.  
Before I could say yes, though, he launched into the story: “Sometimes whenever the computers at Dad’s lab aren’t working, he asks me to fix them for him. I eventually made an agreement with him and the other people at their lab that if they have any computers they couldn’t fix and are going to leave for dead, they should just give them to me. Well, about a year ago, a strong computer virus ended up on the lab’s network and it crashed all of their computers. One by one, I purged the viruses from the computers and they’re as good as new now. But that’s not to say that I’m that good at fixing computers- the vast majority of those scientists are great at fixing computers, too. Most of the computers they can’t fix, I couldn’t fix either, so I scavenged them for working parts. In fact, about half of the computers in here have motherboard failures or corrupt firmware, or something equally fatal. So most of the stuff in here doesn’t even work!” Jeff got up onto his bed, moved several small notebook laptops off of his dresser, opened one of them up and pressed the power button several times. One of those times, the screen lit up, but only for a fraction of a second. “It does that. I think it’s something with the screen backlight. Anyway, why do I have all these broken computers, you ask? Because I’m just kind of a packrat,” he ended.  
“OK, that is so cool. You know pretty much everything there is to know about computers! You’re the smartest person I’ve ever known!” I cried out.  
“Now, that’s not true…” Jeff began, but was interrupted by this horrible metallic screeching and shuddering noise.  
“Aaagh!!” I moaned in pain, covering my ears and cowering behind the desk.  
Jeff ran to the door and closed it. The drilling sound went from sounding like it was right next to my head to as though it was across the street.  
“My room’s right across from the door to the garage, where Dad has his workshop with all those power tools and stuff. I think that he needs to find out how to get a muffler for that circular saw he’s using! Anyway, he sound-proofed my room when he put all those power tools in there after we first moved in,” Jeff explained.  
I sat down on his bed and leaned back against the wall.  
He turned the radio to a classical music station, and, clearing several computer mice and miscellaneous cables off of one of the desks in his room, he set down the notebook laptop with the broken backlight. He opened up a drawer on the desk and got out a screwdriver and started unscrewing the back panel. He glanced back at me and suddenly put the screwdriver down. “I’m sorry…” he said. “I probably shouldn’t try working on my computers now while you’re over here. I don’t want to ignore you.”  
“No, no, it’s fine. You can work on your computers. I actually kind of find it sort of interesting,” I reassured him, nodding towards the broken laptop.  
Jeff walked over to the bed and sat next to me. “No. I wanted to spend time with you.” He put his arm around my torso, gazing lovingly into my eyes.  
I sat up rigidly, eyes wide with fear, and pushed his arm off of me. “No, Jeff…this is definitely not the place for us to be doing anything like this!” I whispered harshly. “We’re as close to behind enemy lines as we can get! You really think that kissing here would be a good idea?” I became red in the face, not wanting to admit that I desperately wanted to let him kiss me, but that I also just knew we’d get found out.  
Jeff let go of me and stared at the floor. “It’s just not fair. I never asked my father for his opinion and I shouldn’t have to. He’s been doing that this whole time…dictating my life for me, telling me what I should and shouldn’t do,” he reflected, then turned to me. “It’s my life, and I’m not going to be that man’s puppet another second!” he cried out, then threw his arms around me and kissed me.   
When my heart skipped a beat and I got that dizzy feeling in the pit of my stomach, it wasn’t just because here was the hottest, smartest, absolute 100% most perfect boy in all of Winters, with his lips pressed against mine, snuggling up into my arms like there wouldn’t be any consequences for this forbidden act of love.  
I feared that Dr. Andonuts would walk in and then go completely nuclear on both me and Jeff, but at the same time, I knew that Jeff was right. We couldn’t let ourselves be puppets, mindlessly following along with Dr. Andonuts’s ideals.   
So I allowed myself to relax, put my arms around Jeff’s waist and let everything except the feeling of his kiss fade into the background.  
I don’t know whether it was the fact that all either of us could concentrate on was where our lips met and how we’d just fallen into each other’s arms, or the fact that we’d had either Mozart or Beethoven playing way too loudly, or the soundproof wall, but neither of us heard the drilling sound stop, or the garage door to the inside open, or Dr. Andonuts’s footsteps down the hall. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I didn’t even hear the door to Jeff’s room open. I honestly thought it was one of the computers in the room, and judging from the fact that Jeff hadn’t stopped kissing me, I assumed that he thought the same thing.   
But we both noticed it when we’d heard Dr. Andonuts let out this strange gasping-yelp sound.


	11. Chapter 11

Jeff and I pulled away from each other, and I knew all the color drained from my face as soon as I saw the somewhat portly, middle-aged scientist standing in the middle of the room, with his eyes wide in surprise and mouth open.  
“Ya…Boo…Guh…Wha…You…The…Buh…Fuh…Dah…Po…” Dr. Andonuts sputtered. He stammered for a long time before his rage overcame his shock. “What is wrong with you, child?!?” he boomed, pointing at me. I’d never seen someone go all purple in the face before, except in cartoons and comic books. But there was nothing comical about how crimson Dr. Andonuts’s face was as he screamed at us- mostly me, but some of what he’d hollered was directed at Jeff, too.  
Dr. Andonuts ranted and raved about how I was ‘poisoning’ his son with my ‘immoral’ values and how as long as he lived, he’d never let Jeff be part of that ‘deviant’ lifestyle. A fair amount of the other things he’d said, I wouldn’t really care to repeat, but by the time he was finished, I had started crying. I honestly thought, for a moment, that what Dr. Andonuts was saying was true. For a tiny second, I really believed that I was in the wrong, and that I actually was being horribly deviant and going against nature. But as my mom’s words from long ago, about how there’s nothing wrong with a boy liking other boys, came back to me, they offered little comfort. Nothing could have prepared me for the tidal wave of mixed emotions I felt in that moment. I was angry, distraught, guilty, disgusted, horrified and embarrassed, all at once.  
Jeff glanced over at me, and through my tears, I saw him reach out and put his hand on my shoulder to comfort me.  
Dr. Andonuts grabbed Jeff’s arm and pulled him up off of the bed.  
“Don’t you do it, Jeffrey. Don’t you even look at that…that…that unnatural boy!” Dr. Andonuts exclaimed.  
“In fact,” he said, letting go of Jeff’s arm and turning to me. “I’m so utterly appalled at your behavior, I refuse to let you stand under this roof another second. I’m going to call your parents at once and let them know what a despicable thing you’ve done! Go wait outside! Now!”   
I ran outside, gasping for breath through my tears, and slammed the door shut behind me.  
I sat on the front porch, trying to gather my thoughts, and mostly just wondering how this could have gone so horribly wrong so quickly. I didn’t care that the newspaper delivery boy had just rode by on his bike, staring at me in disbelief. I didn’t even care that the paper he threw nearly hit me in the head.   
I heard a tapping on the window next to the door. Begrudgingly, I got up and stood in front of the window. Jeff was kneeling on the couch, looking out the window at me. He put his hand against the glass. I put mine on the glass opposite his hand, and I sniffled and stared at the ground. “I want to fix this, but I don’t know how!” I wailed.  
Jeff motioned for me to wait, got off of the couch and ran to the other side of the room, away from the window. He came back with a large notepad and a magic marker, and was writing something when he knelt back down in front of the window. A few moments later, he turned the notepad around and held it to the window.  
“Don’t cry, your eyes light up so beautifully when you smile,” it said.  
I grinned a little at this compliment, but then realized that it was most likely, the last sweet thing Jeff would ever say to me. This made me cry again.  
“Jeff, I love you and I don’t want this to be happening! Why is he taking you away from me?!” I cried out, and put both of my hands on the glass.  
Jeff wrote something else on the notepad, wiped at his eyes, and then showed me the paper.  
“I wish that we’d just gone to your house instead,” he wrote.  
“Me too, Jeff…” I murmured, sniffling. Right then, I saw Dr. Andonuts burst into the room behind him. He seemed to be shouting something angrily at him; then, dragging Jeff away from the window, he glared at me and pulled the blinds down.  
I turned away from the window and buried my face in my hands. “This is the end,” I thought to myself.  
I have no idea how much later my parents arrived. I heard my parents’ voices as they worriedly had a discussion up the walkway.  
“There he is now!” my dad called out upon seeing me.  
My mom ran up and, squatting down in front of me, she gave me a hug while my dad rang the doorbell.  
“It’s going to be okay…it’s going to be fine… please don’t cry, honey…” she cooed.  
When Dr. Andonuts came to the door, he gave Dad a completely blown-out-of-proportion version of what happened.  
“Why, I was apt to explode when I saw your son, sitting on that bed, French-kissing my son!” Dr. Andonuts fumed when he was done ranting to Dad.  
“No!” I bawled. “I wasn’t French-kissing him! Don’t believe him, Daddy!!”  
“Don’t interrupt him!…ohh…come on, let’s just go to the car.” Mom helped me up with a very grave expression.   
I sat down in the back seat and turned away from Mom. She handed me a tissue, and after I blew my nose, she asked me what happened.  
“Well…Jeff was showing me some computers, and then he kissed me, and next thing I know, Dr. Demon runs in and cusses at me!!” I cried, tears streaming down my face.  
My mom tried to reach back and hold my hand. “Oh, honey…” was all she said.  
A few minutes later, Dad got back into the car, thoroughly livid.  
“What’d he say, honey?” Mom asked.  
“We’re leaving,” Dad growled.  
We’d been on the road for a good 10 minutes before Dad said anything else.  
“Honestly, Tony, if I’d known his old man was such a communist, I wouldn’t have let you even be roommates with him at Snow Wood!” Dad spat.   
“Calm down, William!” my mom urged.   
“I will not! This is why I’d rather have we just remained in Fourside! Nobody in Fourside was like that!” Dad exclaimed.  
“Now you know good and well that people in Fourside were just as homophobic as the ones here! Every day, Tony came home from school crying! I don’t know if you remember it, but I do!” my mom argued.  
They spent the rest of the car ride back home arguing about whether it would have been better for my self-esteem to have not moved to Winters.  
When we got home, they just stood in the living room, in a fierce debate until Mom turned to me and said, “Why don’t you go read in your room for a while, honey? We’ll…we’ll talk to you later.”  
I trudged into my room, closed the door, and buried my face in my pillow, crying. I would have thought that crying this long would have dehydrated me, but somehow it didn’t.   
My mom opened the door soon afterwards, with my dad behind her, and she tapped me on the shoulder. I sat up, blinking through my tears.  
“Tony…I’m so sorry that all of this happened. I know you’re upset now…and I don’t want to…I mean…it’s not…that was…” she trailed off.  
“But what your mother’s trying to say is, we’re also upset…with you,” Dad firmly stated.  
“What?! Why??” I whined.  
“We’re not upset with you for feeling that way about Jeff. Not at all. What we’re upset about is going against his dad. Dr. Andonuts informed me that, according to Jeff, you two have been in a…secret relationship?” Dad asked.  
“Yeah…” I admitted.  
“Now…do you think you could explain that a little more?” Mom asked.  
With a sigh, I relayed all the recent events, beginning with the first time I kissed Jeff on the roof of the school, up to today’s incident. I explained how “Adam” wasn’t real, and that both Jeff and I had been forced to weave a complex web of lies to keep our relationship intact and not lose everything we’d worked so hard to achieve- like we just did.  
“Well, why did you keep it a secret from us? If you’d told us, we could have helped you both out!” Mom incredulously asked.  
“Because if I told you, you either would have been so excited you told Dr. Andonuts and this would have happened anyway, or you would have just told us not to be in a relationship because of Jeff’s dad!” I cried. “I knew that this was impossible, but all I wanted was just to let Jeff know how much I loved him…”  
My mom hugged me, and whispered that it’d be okay.  
“Well, as long as Dr. Andonuts forbids your contact with Jeff…we are, too.” Dad explained. “You won’t be friends with him, let alone more than friends, unless Dr. Andonuts gives the okay to.”  
“No!” I wailed. “You can’t do this!! I’m tired of everyone making my choices for me! Why isn’t this up to Jeff and me instead of…of…Dr. Demon?!”  
“Look, I agree that Dr. Andonuts is way paranoid and stubborn. But you don’t want to get Jeff in trouble with his dad, do you?” Dad asked, leaning down to eye level with me.  
“N-no…” I said, sniffling.  
“Well, you’re going to have to deal with the truth. I know it hurts, and how you’re not going to stop missing him anytime soon, but if you really love Jeff, you’ll do what’s best for both of you. And right now, that’s letting go,” Dad explained.  
“There are other fish in the sea, Tony…there won’t be anybody just like Jeff out there, but you might meet a guy you like even more, whose parents aren’t…aren’t…like Dr. Andonuts,” my mom cooed.  
“Okay,” I squeaked. “Can I just be alone for a little while?” I left my room, went into the bathroom, and sat on the floor in front of the bathtub. I knew then that I had no other option. I had to do what they told me- I had to get over Jeff. But I knew, somewhere deep within me, I couldn’t ever get over him. A guy like Jeff is one in a thousand billion. Nothing could ever stop what I felt…but that didn’t stop everyone from telling me I had to stop feeling that way. “I wish there was a magic potion that both Jeff and I could take so we could forget that the other one ever existed,” I murmured as I got up off of the floor and got a washcloth out of the cabinet. I washed my face, and though the water did feel good on my now-irritated eyes, I still felt like the world was trying to eat me alive. Throwing the washcloth down in the sink, I opened the door.  
“I know something that’ll make you feel better!” my mom sang.  
I wanted to say, “Yeah, a sudden case of amnesia,” but instead I asked, “What is it?” in a deadpan voice.  
She held up a box of white cake mix and lemon frosting. Under more cheerful circumstances, I would have jumped on the opportunity to make my favorite dessert. But though I did love white cake with lemon icing, all I could say to that was, “Yay…”.  
She put the cake mix and icing down on the table, and walked over to me and gave me a hug. “I know, Tony…I know…it’s going to be okay. I understand,” she murmured.  
But it was almost certain that she didn’t actually understand at all.


	12. Chapter 12

The next few days were a lot like the time after my parents brought me home. I spent a lot of time questioning why I’d even decided I liked Jeff in the first place, and feeling bad about questioning it because the truth was that no matter what they told me, Jeff would always be my boyfriend- at least to me, he would be. I was never able to stop thinking about him. I felt like each day was just going to become like clockwork now- that it was going to be a boring, sad life that really held no deeper meaning for me.  
I watched a lot of TV, in order to at least look like I was trying to get my mind off of Jeff, but it didn’t help at all.  
Just when I’d completely abandoned any hope of some external force coming in and making everything better, the phone rang while I was mindlessly watching some game show. I answered the phone, and was surprised by how terribly hollow and depressed my voice sounded.  
I was greeted by a burst of loud static, then a familiar voice. “Tony, it’s me, Jeff,” he said.  
I gasped in delight. “How are you calling without your dad knowing? Wait, I’m not suppposed to be talking to you either! But I think I’ll deal with the fallout from that later,” I whispered.  
The static came back, but this time, the static covered up most of what Jeff said. “Oh, I’m so sorry about that,” he said when the static stopped. “I’ll repeat it. I managed to hot-wire my reciever phone to make calls for a brief period of time instead of just receiving them. It’s really glitchy, but it should work just long enough to where I can tell you what I need to tell you. I need you to meet me at Natalie’s Ice Cream Shop in 30 minutes. I’ll tell you about my idea there.”  
“What?” I asked. “What-“  
“Trust me, Tony, I have a solution to this problem!” Jeff exclaimed. With a loud burst of static, the phone signal cut out, and I heard a busy signal on the other end.  
Confused, I hung up the phone, and went off to my room to put on some clothes that looked more presentable than the series of stained and/or ripped-up old clothes I’d been wearing around the house for the past few days.  
“Mom, I’m just going to go down to the ice cream shop and get a sundae, you want anything?” I announced right before I’d gotten to the front door.  
“You’re going to the ice cream shop? Why?” my mom asked.   
“Because I just would really like a sundae…and maybe some fresh air might do me some good,” I said.  
My mom smiled. “Whenever I’m down, all I have to do is just go for a walk and I feel better immediately. I really do think you should do that,” she said.  
I left the house and walked the 3 blocks to the ice cream shop.   
Natalie’s Ice Cream Shop was a brick building painted periwinkle, with bright sunny decorations, such as bright pink and blue striped awnings and a mural on the side that depicted a nature scene with lots of flowers and a majestic unicorn standing in front of a waterfall.  
After standing in front of the store for a few moments, just staring at the sign that read “Natalie’s Ice Cream Shop” in fancy letters, I pushed on the front door, and the bells on the door tinkled.  
I’d only ever been here once before, and that was when my parents took me here right after we’d finished moving in. Even though my mom knew Natalie, the owner, from college, we never really came here that often.  
Natalie happened to be at the counter, refilling the hot fudge machine.  
She was a tall, thin woman with fluffy strawberry-blonde hair and sapphire eyes. Today, she had on a pink dress with a light blue apron on over it.  
“Hi, Tom! Long time, no see!” Natalie cheerfully called out, waving at me.  
“Thanks, but my name’s Tony,” I politely corrected her.  
Natalie shook her head, and sighed. “I promised Belle that I’d remember your name, but I never did! I guess maybe I just haven’t seen you around here enough times.”  
“I promise that I’ll try coming back here more often,” I said, sitting down in a booth right by one of the windows.  
Jeff came in a few minutes later, looking around suspiciously. The energy in his aquamarine eyes was gone, and he seemed very tired. He sat down across from me, saying nothing.  
“It’s so great to see you again, Jeff,” I said, “So what’s your idea?”  
Looking around, Jeff reached into his pocket. “Close your eyes and hold out your hand,” he said.  
I did as he told me to, and I felt him place a piece of cardstock in the palm of my hand. I opened my eyes and was thoroughly surprised by what he gave me.


	13. Chapter 13

“Onett?” I incredulously asked. Jeff had given me a train ticket that read “South Winters station to Onett, one-way”.   
“Exactly,” Jeff began. “We’re going to run away.”  
“But why?” I asked. “And why Onett? That’s over a thousand kilometers from here!”  
“Tony, I can’t live without you. I’ve been thinking about you every second since the incident at my house. We can go to Onett tomorrow, and we’ll stay with my friend Ness and his family. There’s where we’ll be free. Onett is our new sanctuary,” Jeff said. “No more being anybody’s puppet. Just our boundless love.”  
His idea sounded amazing, but I knew exactly what’d happen if one day we just decided to up and leave out of the blue. “But Jeff, if we go to Onett without telling our parents, they’re going to call the Wintersian Cavalry Unit and stage a raid!” I exclaimed. “We’ve got to tell them we’re leaving so they’ll know we weren’t kidnapped, but it’s got to be said in just the right way…”  
“We’re going to write notes. Here’s the plan: when you go home, pack your things without your parents noticing you. Then when that’s done, write a note explaining that you’re going to leave because you’re sick of being their puppet and that you and I will be going to Onett until further notice- further notice being them letting us be together without any strings attached. Don’t disclose the location so that way they can’t call the Cavalry and the Onett police to Ness’s house. Go to bed extra-early tonight so you can wake up at precisely 5:00- that’ll allow you enough time to shower and maybe eat some breakfast before you sneak out and walk to the train station where we’ll wait together until 7:45, which is when the train leaves for Onett,” Jeff explained. “Are you going to want to do this for me? For us?”  
“I’d do anything for you, Jeff,” I murmured, holding his hands between mine. “Especially this. No idea you’ve had has ever sounded more right.”  
I went to the counter and bought a hot fudge sundae, which Jeff and I shared as he told me what Ness and his family were like.  
“It’s official now,” Jeff declared after he’d explained everything and the sundae was gone. “Tomorrow, we’re going to say goodbye to Winters.”  
“But for how long?” I asked. “I mean, we will be coming back here eventually, right?”  
“I honestly have no idea, love…” he confessed. “Maybe we’ll be there for a few weeks, maybe a few months…it depends on when our parents get the message and realize the reason we decided to leave.”  
After thanking Natalie for the ice cream, we left and both went back home.  
When my mom let me back into our house, I immediately ran to my room and closed the door.   
I searched through my closet until I found a knapsack my dad bought for this time that I was supposed to stay with my aunt Jordan, and folded up a bunch of my good clothes to bring with me. I also packed some books, my toothbrush and a picture I’d taken with my family when we went to the zoo.   
As I stared at the picture, in which me, my mom, my dad, Aunt Jordan and my cousin Joshua were standing in front of the giraffes and a giraffe was about to lick the side of my dad’s head, I realized that I’ve been missing my family ever since the incident at Jeff’s house occurred. I missed the way they used to be, back before Dr. Andonuts ruined everything. I didn’t want to run away from my family, but I’d do anything in the world to get away from Dr. Andonuts’s manipulation and hate. I’d do anything to be where I could love Jeff and let him love me without fear of retribution from either of our parents.  
After I’d finished packing, I pulled a piece of notebook paper out of the stack sitting on my desk, and after straining my brain to think of what I should write, I wrote the letter to my parents, which read:

Dear Mom and Dad,   
I know you said I can’t be friends with Jeff anymore because of the fact that Dr. Andonuts is too homophobic. But the truth is, I can’t live without him. There might be other fish in the sea, but I don’t want any of them. So I’ll just go right to telling you what happened.   
When I went to the ice cream shop yesterday, it was because Jeff invited me there. And it turns out he’s feeling the same way about me that I do about him, but it’s even worse for him because Dr. Andonuts isn’t like you guys. This is all to say that we agreed to run away together. By the time you’re reading this, we’ll be on a train to Eagleland, on our way to where we can be together in peace. We’ll be staying with one of Jeff’s friends and his family, but I won’t tell you that friend’s name, his address, or what city he lives in because if I tell you, you’ll go there and try to separate us again. The truth is that Jeff and I were meant to be together, and no insane scientist, or anybody for that matter, is going to stop destiny.   
I imagine that you’re probably upset, and thinking that somehow this is your fault. But it really isn’t. I don’t want to run away from you guys, the world’s best mom and dad, but I do want to run away from Dr. Andonuts. If it weren’t for Dr. Andonuts being so authoritarian about Jeff having to like girls now, and that he were okay with his son being gay, you guys would let us be together, no problem. But that’s not the way it is.   
Don’t worry, we’ll eventually be coming back to Winters. Neither me nor Jeff could give you an exact date, but all we know is it’s going to depend on Dr. Andonuts. We’ll come back just as soon as he changes his mind and allows me and Jeff to date.   
I can tell you right now, though, that I’ll be missing both of you like crazy when I’m in Eagleland. 

Love, Tony

I re-read the letter, trying not to cry. I really didn’t want to do this to my parents, but I was also filled with hate for Dr. Andonuts and excited to get to defy him without there being anything he could do about it.  
I folded up the letter and hid it just underneath my bed, where I could easily get it out and place it on my pillow when I left.  
That night, I went to bed at only 8:00, and woke up the next morning at 5:30. When I looked at the time, I thrashed about in the covers in surprise and rage, then quickly stopped for fear of waking my parents. I quickly showered and changed into some jeans and a random T-shirt I’d found in my closet that wasn’t one of the ones I wanted to bring- it happened to be the one that I had on the day Jeff first came over to watch nature documentaries with me.  
I put on my favorite hat, and put the note I’d written to my parents on my pillow. I gathered my things, and quietly snuck around to the front door. Taking one last look around, I took a deep breath, whispered “Goodbye…I’m sorry,” and left.  
It was still kind of dark out, and it was quite honestly terrifying to be walking around by myself on such a gloomy morning. The streetlights cast a harsh yellow glow on the sidewalk, and every time a car came by, I nearly wanted to dive into the bushes out of fear that the driver was a serial killer.  
After I’d passed Natalie’s Ice Cream and could see Snow Wood on the foggy horizon, the sun started throwing some purple and yellow streaks of light onto the dark blue sky. The street transformed from foreboding and lonely to beautiful and welcoming as the colors of the sun filled the sky. A few more cars started appearing, people on their morning commute to work, but I wasn’t shaking in fear anymore, and instead admired the sunset as I quickly walked to the train station.   
By the time that the sun had completely risen above the horizon, I’d arrived at the train station. Jeff was waiting for me outside, with two suitcases in his arms and the tickets in hand. He was searching the crowd of people for me, and checking the clock. When he saw me, he ran up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.   
“Tony, you showed up just in time,” he said. “We’re about to be late!”  
We ran to the platform, handed the lady at the counter our tickets, then made a beeline for the train and nearly threw our initialed tickets at the conductor as we scrambled into our seats.  
“All aboard!” I heard the conductor holler right at the same time I put my knapsack under the seat.  
“Phew,” Jeff sighed. “We were almost late!”  
“I’m so sorry, but I woke up kind of late,” I responded.   
“I couldn’t sleep,” Jeff began, but abandoned any attempt at conversation when the train lurched forwards. “The sounds the train makes against the rails is going to be kind of loud, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to try talking over it!” Jeff explained. The chattering and clanking noise of the wheels against the tracks proved his point right after he’d finished talking. It was so loud, I could barely hear myself think, so I took his advice and just looked out the window.  
For the most part, all that was outside was just empty fields and pine trees, in addition to the mountains off in the distance. But a while later, I couldn’t see the mountains anymore, and the trees became shorter and shorter as we approached Fourside. I never thought I would have been excited to see the run-down apartments and, eventually, pristine, fancy skyscrapers and the Monotoli building again, but I could barely contain my giddiness.  
“This is it,” I thought to myself. “Eagleland! We’re almost there!”  
After crossing a desert and passing through two smaller cities, the train went through a tunnel. On the other side of that tunnel, I could see a small building by the tracks that I assumed was the train station of Onett, and saw a billboard out the window that read “Welcome to Onett, the Friendliest Place in Eagleland”.  
I glanced over at Jeff and saw that he’d fallen asleep. I wanted to let him sleep because he looked so adorable when he slept, but I had to let him know we were nearly there. I admired the way he was smiling in his sleep for a little while longer, then reached over and put my hand on his shoulder and gently shook him a little.   
He lazily opened his eyes and looked around. “Are we at Onett yet?” he asked.  
“Yes, babe,” I said, as the train slowed down. It squealed to a stop at the platform and the conductor walked down the aisle, announcing, “We have arrived at Onett. Have a great rest of the day here or wherever you’re going after this.”  
Jeff and I gathered our suitcases and got off the train, and walked through the station- which really looked less like a train station and more like a log cabin with a few desks in it. We left, and took in the sights at Onett.  
Onett was a medium-sized town, with not a whole lot of buildings, but not rural by any standards.   
Across the road was a hotel and a few other stores. Beyond them, some houses, and a pizza place and an arcade. The buildings were almost all painted with bright cheerful colors, and I felt like the entire city was just welcoming us.  
“Jeff, I’ve only been here for 10 seconds and I already love it here,” I praised, excitedly spinning around.  
“That’s the way I felt the first time I came here…oh dear…now what direction from here is Ness’s house?” Jeff wondered aloud, and, taking my hand, he started walking. I cheerfully bounced along behind him, looking into the windows of the stores and people-watching. Little kids zoomed by on their bikes, and adults with briefcases wandered in and out of buildings, doing errands or heading to work.  
“Oh! I remember!” Jeff exclaimed. “There’s the drugstore. Ness said that his house is past the drugstore, to the right of the library, and it’s the second one on the right!”   
Together, we walked down the street until the asphalt and sidewalk turned to a dirt path which wound through a meadow in front of the library. Following the path some more led us to two houses- one of which was large and light blue in color, and the other of which was smaller and white.  
“He said it’s the one on the right,” Jeff thought aloud, pointing at the smaller house. We both walked to the front porch, and I bent over to smell the bright pink lilies in the flowerbed.   
“You want to ring the bell?” Jeff offered.  
I stood up. “No thanks, you’ve visited here before,” I said.  
He rang the doorbell. There was a barking sound that grew louder as the dog got closer to the door.   
“Oh, hush up, King! King! No! Get back!” I heard a woman chastising the dog.  
The door opened to reveal a blonde woman in a long-sleeved red dress trying desparately to keep a large, fluffy grey dog from darting out the door and taking her with him.   
“Oh! Jeff! What a wonderful- stop it!- wonderful surprise! Please, come on in- quick! King, if you don’t stop that squirming…!” the woman exclaimed. Quickly, we ran through the door and I closed it behind me.  
King bounded off up the stairs, and the woman smoothed out her hair and skirt.   
“I’m really sorry about that,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance yet. Who are you?” she asked me.  
“I’m Tony…uh, Jeff’s boyfriend,” I introduced myself unsurely.  
“How nice,” she said. “I’m Ness’s mom, Mrs. Hutchinson, but please- call me Carol.”  
I shook her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” I said.  
“I heard the doorbell!” a boy said from in the stairwell. Ness came down the stairs, in his striped shirt, blue cargo shorts and red baseball cap, with King by his side. Ness looked over at us, and grinned when he saw Jeff. “Hey! It’s Jeff! And you brought your friend…no, don’t tell me your name, I know this…Tommy?”  
I sighed in mild frustration. “Tony,” I corrected him. “My name’s Tony.”  
“Ugh!” Ness exclaimed, facepalming. “I would have thought your name would be easy to remember, but I guess not!”  
“You could have used your powers…” Jeff muttered.  
“So what brings…on second thought, nevermind,” Ness said. He put his hands behind his back and closed his eyes, swaying a bit, then he abruptly stopped and opened them in surprise.  
“Oh man! Oh man, oh man! What awful news!! That’s why you’ve got your bags!” Ness cried out.   
“He read our minds. I don’t know if either of us already told you, but he’s psychic,” Jeff explained. “I think he knows why we’re here.”  
“Awful news?” Mrs. Hutchinson asked.   
“You see, I just read their minds, and…” Ness began.  
“Ness, what have I told you about using your powers unnecessarily?” his mom scolded.  
“Mom, I’m really sorry! But listen anyway! You see, it turns out Jeff likes boys, but his dad’s like, hyper-homophobic and really strict and all that stuff, and Tony’s parents started agreeing with Jeff’s dad so they came here so they could be together!!” Ness exclaimed.  
“Ness!! You’re not supposed to-“ Ness’s mom began.  
“But I don’t really…” I started to say.  
“But Mom! How could you not care about them?”  
“You’re saying that you found out, without asking them first, they ran away to here?” Mrs. Hutchinson folded her arms. “I’m not upset with Jeff and Tony, I’m upset with you for using your powers on them!”  
“Mom! That’s beside the point! The point is…it’s just like what happened to Aunt Marissa and Ms. Susan! How could you forget that?” Ness cried out.  
Mrs. Hutchinson’s eyes widened, and she seemed to be staring off into space. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she began to sob.  
“Mom…I’m sorry…I’m really sorry,” Ness apologized frantically. “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject. It was too soon. I know…” He also started to cry a little.  
Awkwardly, Jeff and I tried to find anything else to focus on as Ness and his mom stood in front of the living room window, hugging and crying.  
Jeff and I both ended up deciding to sit on the floor and pet the dog until Mrs. Hutchinson stopped hugging Ness and crying.   
“Boys…” she said tearfully. “Boys, you can stay as…as long as you like.” She sniffled and wiped at her eyes.  
I got up and looked over at Ness, who waved his hand at me, sniffled a little and mouthed, “I’ll explain it later”.  
“You can go and put your stuff on the couch,” Mrs. Hutchinson said.  
“Actually, can you guys stay in my room?” Ness asked. “It’ll be like a sleepover! It’s gonna be awesome!”  
“Okay,” Mrs. Hutchinson sobbed. I reached over and patted her on the back. “Thanks,” she murmured.   
“Come on, guys! I gotta show you my room. It’s awesome!” Ness exclaimed, motioning for us to follow him up the stairs. I gathered my suitcases and started walking up the stairs, but Jeff was quickly knocked over by King, who bounded up the stairs after Ness.  
I turned around and helped Jeff up.   
“I’m really sorry about King,” Ness said. “Normally, he doesn’t jump around and knock people over like that. I guess he must really like you guys!”  
“Yeah, I can see that…” Jeff said.  
The three of us walked down the hall until we reached the room at the end.   
“Here it is, guys!” Ness exclaimed, and threw the door open. There were posters of famous baseball players on the walls and a few rugs on the wooden floor. To the right of his bed was a writing desk with various photos strewn across it, and a bookshelf full of comic books.  
King jumped onto the desk, scattering photos about.  
“King! No!” Ness cried out.   
King slunk down off of the desk, looking over at Ness with wet brown eyes.  
Ness groaned in frustration and began picking up the photos, and I decided to help. “I just started sorting those! I don’t know why King’s doing this. Normally, he’s okay around company. Maybe it’s because every time we’ve had company since we got him, we’ve only ever had one person come over?” he hypothesized.  
I picked up one of the photos and looked at it. It was of Ness standing in front of a building, a baseball bat slung over his shoulder and holding up the “peace” sign with his hand.  
Ness looked over at the picture and laughed. “Those pictures are from the adventure we’d just had. You know, with Jeff, Paula and Poo, we went to go and fight Giygas, turns out Pokey was in on it, and he ended up somehow getting away with aiding and abetting the apocalypse and was allowed to go back home? We saw the weirdest photographer when we were there! He’s the one who took those pictures, by the way.”  
Jeff started laughing. “Most photographers make you say ‘cheese’ or something normal right before they take your picture. Guess what that photographer had us say!”  
“Uh… ‘hedgehog’?” I guessed. When we’d gotten our photos taken for the yearbook at Snow Wood, the photographer had told us to just say ‘hedgehog’ for some weird reason. When I got the photo back, my confusion was evident- I had a quizzical look on my face instead of smiling in the photo.  
“Fuzzy pickles!” Ness and Jeff burst out simultaneously, and then doubled over in laughter.  
Confused for a second, I thought about it until I lost the ability to keep a straight face any longer and fell on the floor laughing with Jeff and Ness.


	14. Chapter 14

It wasn’t too long after that when Mrs. Hutchinson came in.   
“Boys, how are you doing?” she asked.  
We all nodded and muttered some variation of “doing fine”.   
“Well, Ness, Pokey just came by. He brought over a casserole from his mom and invited you over for dinner,” she said.  
Ness sighed quietly.  
“Ness, all that boy just wants to do is be friends with you. He’s really, really lonely, and he doesn’t…doesn’t have very nice parents. Why don’t you introduce Jeff and Tony to him, too?” Ness’s mom said.  
“Okay,” Ness muttered, sighing and reluctantly putting his comic book up while Ness’s mom left the room.  
“What’s wrong?” Jeff asked.  
“There goes the whole freaking neighborhood!” Ness exclaimed, gently hitting his head on the wall in frustration.   
“Ness, what is it?” I asked, getting up.   
“I have to go to dinner with the world’s worst neighbor,” Ness flatly stated. “And I’m supposed to bring you guys along!”  
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.   
“What’s wrong? Clearly, you guys don’t know Pokey.” Ness sat down and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t want to have to torture you guys by making you sit at dinner with him. He’s rude and annoying and loud and cowardly and just a great big jerk! And his folks aren’t any better!”  
“If it makes you feel better, I’m not too sure about this whole dinner situation myself…” Jeff said.  
“Thanks…let’s just get this over with, I guess,” Ness said. He trudged down the stairs, and Jeff and I followed behind.   
“Ness, thank you so much. I know that… you’d probably rather be upstairs watching cartoons or whatever, but this probably means the world to Pokey. He told me earlier that you’re his only friend…he thinks really highly of you,” Mrs. Hutchinson said.  
“Okay, got it,” Ness said, and opened up the front door. “Come on, let’s go.” Ness grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door with him.   
“Hey, wait!” Jeff exclaimed, and ran right after us. He closed the door behind him and we stood out front in Ness’s yard. The sunset cast a golden light over everything, and the houses and trees left long shadows on the grass.  
“Look over there, at that blue house,” Ness said, pointing at the house next to his. In addition to the house needing repairs, the grass was nearly dead and there were all kinds of miscellaneous garbage, rusted garden tools and old sprinklers laying around the yard. One of the windows was broken out and a garbage bag had been loosely duct-taped over it.  
Jeff looked at the house with pure disgust and horror. “We’re going in there?” he incredulously asked.  
“It doesn’t even look like anyone lives there anymore,” I remarked.  
“Well, believe me: there are definitely people living in there. You think their YARD is awful, you should see the inside of their house!” Ness explained.  
We followed Ness up to the front door of the house, and he rang the doorbell nervously.  
Inside there was a loud clattering. “Lardna, get the door!” a gruff man’s voice snapped.  
“Shut up, Aloysius! It’s probably another salesman!” a hoarse, gravely female voice answered.  
“Naw, hang on a sec, it’s that kid next door that the boy invited. Go let him in, woman! And while you’re up, gimme another beer!”   
The door opened, and a horrible smell hit me. It smelled like cigarette smoke, various old food smells and sweaty clothes. The woman who came to the door looked like she’d put on her makeup with a snowblower, having smeared most of her lipstick and eyeshadow all over her face. She had part of her straggly blond hair up in a loose bun and the rest of it down. She held a cigarette between her pudgy fingers, and she had on a short pink dress that looked to be about two sizes too small and also clearly not made for a woman of her size.  
“Whaddya want?” she asked, taking a puff off of her cigarette.   
Jeff and I huddled behind Ness.  
“Um… hi, Mrs. Minch…Pokey invited us?” Ness said questioningly.  
Grumbling, Mrs. Minch waddled out of the way and kicked a stained jacket off of the doormat.  
As soon as I’d walked in, I desparately wanted to turn around, run back to Ness’s house and hide under the couch. The smell was even stronger inside, and it looked like these people had never even heard of cleaning. There were unidentifiable stains on the carpet and couch, and the floor was covered with rumpled papers and dirty clothes. Pizza boxes and styrofoam take-out containers were strewn about, and a pair of gross-looking sweaty socks clung to the ceiling fan.   
At the table sat a blonde, somewhat chubby man with a scruffy mustache. He had on a rumpled gray business suit and a pair of round glasses balanced on the end of his nose, and he was drinking from a beer can that he would sometimes attempt to set down among all the things that had been precariously stacked on the table.   
“Someone go tell the boys dinner’s almost ready!” the man called out.  
“Um…this is Mr. Minch…” Ness said, gesturing to the man.  
He looked over at us with tired eyes and just grunted.  
Mrs. Minch had gone back into the kitchen and stirred a giant pot on the stove.   
“Anyones here want a bowl of my world famous ‘roadkill chowdah??’” Mrs. Minch announced, spooning some whitish-gray glop from the pot into a bowl.  
Right then, an overweight boy in overalls ran into the room. Peering through the curtain of greasy blond hair in front of his eyes, he ran over to Ness.  
“Ness! You came! Pa said you wasn’t gonna show up, but you’re here! And who are these folks over here?” The boy pointed at Jeff and then to me.  
“It’s…it’s great to see you, Pokey…” Ness muttered, trying not to sound sarcastic. “These are my friends, Jeff and Tony, from Winters.”  
“Well, yer sure in for a treat! Ma’s ‘roadkill chowdah’ is the best!” Pokey declared, rubbing his belly. “Mmm-mm! Just smell that! Racoon and squirrel! I think she caught ‘em just today, matter of fact!”  
Jeff and I looked at each other fearfully.  
“Well, boys? Y’all just gonna stand over there or’s you gonna come tie on the feed bag??” Mrs. Minch asked, waving a spoon around and splattering some gravy-like substance onto the range hood.  
Pokey shoved Ness out of the way and eagerly took a bowl from Mrs. Minch’s hands.  
Ness, Jeff and I trudged into the kitchen, and Mrs. Minch spooned some things from the pots on the stove into a large bowl for each of us. When she made my bowl, I couldn’t help but notice the disgusting pinkish-gray color of the substance in the pot that I assumed was the “roadkill chowdah” and I could have sworn I saw a piece of fur, along with the gray chunks of meat and cream that wasn’t stirred in well enough, floating in the goop.  
I quickly walked over to behind Mr. Minch, where the rest of us were standing- except for Pokey, who was sitting on the floor, loudly slurping up the contents of his bowl.  
“Oh! You’s gonna need a place to eat!” Mrs. Minch ran over to the table and shoved everything onto the floor with a loud clatter. She set a bowl in front of Mr. Minch, and the rest of us sat down at the table, after shoving a few board games out from under our feet.  
“Picky! Get yer butt in here! It’s roadkill chowdah night!” Mrs. Minch screeched across the house.  
A boy who looked younger than Pokey trudged into the room. He had the same hair in his eyes that Pokey did, but his hair looked considerably cleaner, and he had on a black T-shirt and jeans.  
“Oh…okay,” Picky muttered, and accepted a bowl of chowder. He sat down at the table, then put a napkin in his lap.  
Mrs. Minch waddled over to the table with her own bowl and sat down.   
I turned back to my own bowl of chowder, and noticed that Mrs. Minch had put not only chowder in it, but also peas and carrots and some mashed potatoes. Nervously, I ate the peas, carrots and potatoes. They tasted bland but mostly edible, but soon all that was left was the gray-pink “roadkill chowdah”.   
I looked over at Jeff and Ness. They’d done the exact same thing I’d done.  
“Let’s do this?” Jeff whispered, holding up a spoonful of the goop.  
Ness and I each took a spoonful of the gross-looking substance.  
“Bottoms up,” Ness said, and shoveled his spoonful in at the same time Jeff did. I did the same, and soon the three of us were nearly gagging.  
It tasted like bitter gravy with undercooked, salty meat.  
“How is it?” Mrs. Minch asked while stuffing her face with a mix of chowder, potatoes and vegetables.  
“Mmm,” Ness said, trying to hide the fact that he was grimacing.  
“Excellent,” Jeff coughed.  
“Yeah…” I muttered, and then proceeded to wash the taste out of my mouth by gulping down nearly half of the glass of water I’d been given.  
“Well, feel free to dig in! There’s plenty left if y’all want more,” she said.  
I glanced around the table. Mr. and Mrs. Minch were gobbling their food and making a bit of a mess, while Picky delicately sipped the chowder with a look of disgust on his face. He turned to us and just nodded.  
“Hey! You gonna eat that?” Pokey jumped up and grabbed Picky’s bowl off of the table and gobbled the contents up messily.  
“Ughh,” Jeff quietly groaned.  
“Y’all ain’t hardly touched your food!” Pokey muttered around a mouth full of food, pointing at our servings with his spoon. “Don’t worry, it ain’t poisoned! Go on, dig in!”  
I rolled my eyes, and forced myself to eat every last bit of the disgusting “roadkill chowdah”. By the time I was done with the last agonizing spoonful, I felt thoroughly sick to my stomach. A quick glance around the table showed that Jeff and Ness felt the same way that I did.  
“Oh…thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Minch…” Jeff said. “I’m thoroughly full. I don’t think I could even have another crumb!” He glanced over at me with an expression that could only have meant, “Help me.”  
“See, I bet you Winnurs folk ain’t never ate this kinda food before! This here’s some good eatin’, huh?” Mr. Minch called out.  
“Real good,” I muttered, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.   
“Uh…” Ness said, looking up at the clock. “It’s almost 7 now and my mom said we have to be home before then…”  
“Yeah, his grandma’s supposed to come over!” I quickly added.  
“That’s a right shame! I really wish y’all could stay a lil’ bit longer!” Mr. Minch exclaimed.   
“Me too, but…uh…we’ve really got to be going…” Jeff stammered, and got up, kicking some garbage away to push his chair in.   
“Say, if y’all’s ever wanna come back and eat again, yer more’n welcome to!” Mrs. Minch joyfully cried out. “There’s always plenty fer ya!”  
“Gotta go. Busy, busy, busy,” Ness said, backing towards the door. “Bye.” He found the doorknob and opened it, and Jeff and I ran after him. Slamming the door behind me, I gasped in the night air, relieved to finally be able to breathe.  
Spluttering and coughing, Jeff put his hand on my shoulder. “What I’d like to know is,” he gasped. “what do they keep in their house to make it stink so badly? A hundred kilograms of sulfur?”   
“I don’t know, but let’s go home!” Ness exclaimed. We all ran towards the door, and Ness knocked on it. When Mrs. Hutchinson answered it, we all hugged her and almost knocked the poor woman over.   
“Mom! I’m so glad to see you!!”  
“For the love of Isaac Newton, please don’t make us do that again!”  
“I’ll never feel clean again after being there!”  
She patted Ness on the back, confused. “I…um…take it you didn’t like it?”  
“No!” we all three said in unison.   
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat again!” I cried.  
Mrs. Hutchinson shook her head knowingly. “Let me guess: Lardna made ‘roadkill chowdah’ for you?”  
“Ugh! Yes!” Ness said.  
“I know her chowder isn’t the best, but I’m glad that you did that anyway. I bet you’ve probably made them all really, really happy!” Mrs. Hutchinson said.  
It didn’t take Ness’s psychic powers to determine we were all thinking the exact same thing: That might have made Pokey happy, but it made us miserable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always kinda saw Pokey and his parents as real hillbilly/"trailer trash" types XDDD I'm not sure that's a very popular take on them though since I've never seen anybody else portray them that way.


	15. Chapter 15

“I just can’t thank you enough for getting your mom to let us stay here,” Jeff said, putting on his pajamas.   
Ness sat on the bed, reading a comic book. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Actually, I should be thanking you. It’s like an extended sleepover with you guys here! It gets so boring sometimes with just my mom, Tracy and myself. Sometimes my dad is here but he’s usually traveling for business.”  
“And I’m really glad that Jeff had the idea to come here… oh, if only our parents were more tolerant,” I sighed. I smoothed out the blankets that made my sleeping bag and sat down on them.   
“Are you boys still up?” Ness’s mom opened the door. “It’s late, you should go to bed!”  
“Aww, Mom-“ Ness started to say.  
“Ness…” She gave him a look.  
“I mean, good night, Mom.” He put his book up and laid down in bed.  
His mom gave him a kiss goodnight and turned the light off.   
“Sleep tight. I’ll be making blueberry pancakes in the morning for you all!”  
We’d been there for a little over two weeks, and I’d gotten used to this new routine and new surroundings- and tonight seemed like just another peaceful night at Ness’s house. The window was open and the cool night air blew in through the window. I lay on the floor, with my blankets and pillow, enjoying the distant traffic sounds from downtown Onett and the crickets and frogs singing. As I started to doze off, I heard a new sound join the chorus of cars. It was a noise that sounded almost like a lawnmower, mixed with a periodic knocking. At first I dismissed it, assuming maybe it was one of the Minches next door trying to mow the grass- at 9:30 at night, in fact, I figured they’d be the type to do that- and hitting all the objects they’d left in the yard. But the noise grew louder, and as it did, I heard a distinct, familiar-sounding car engine noise along with it. I listened to it a second longer, and my heart sank when I heard it more clearly. Scrambling off of the floor, I got up and looked outside the window. Up the road, I could see a little blue car and a beat-up, rusty sedan pass under the street lamp.  
Almost hyperventilating, I silently told myself, “Don’t panic…maybe it’s someone else with the same model of car…” But somewhere deep within me, I knew it was exactly what I’d hoped wouldn’t happen. I leaned against the wall and tried to catch my breath, then accidentally let out a loud whine of fear, waking Ness and Jeff up.  
Ness turned on the lamp on his nightstand, while Jeff groped around on the floor for his glasses.  
“Ugghhhh…what’s going on?” Ness asked sleepily.  
Jeff froze in place upon hearing the car engines. He ran to the window, saw the cars getting closer to the house, and said a swear word. He then ran to the other side of the room and rapidly started moving things about, as though he were looking for something.  
“Jeff, what are you doing?” Ness asked.  
“Tony, come on! We have to hide! Our parents found us!” he squeaked. He found the closet door and opened it.  
“What? How’d they find us? We didn’t even tell them where we were going!” I incredulously asked.  
“Knowing Dr. Andonuts, he probably went through the whole list of my friends and called their parents to ask where we were as soon as he noticed I was gone- and he must have just found Ness’s mom!” Jeff hypothesized. “Either way, this is not good- at all!!”  
“Guys, I don’t know-“ Ness was interrupted by a loud pounding on the front door.  
“Eeep!” Jeff and I squealed at the same time. I dove into the closet with Jeff and threw a jacket over my head.  
Ness walked over to the closet. “Guys, I was going to say you should probably go down there. Like, maybe explain what’s going on? If you want I can try to help. I mean, if you guys hide up here they might call the cops or something, thinking you got kidnapped…”  
Nervously, Jeff got up from behind a box. He ambled slowly out of the closet. I did the same, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.  
“Now, let’s go downstairs…” Ness said, and started leading us downstairs.  
I glanced over at the front door after Ness gently pushed me down the stairwell. Ness’s mom was standing inside, in a nightgown and bathrobe, her hair in rollers. On the porch, I saw my parents and behind them, Dr. Andonuts. My mom saw me, standing there awkwardly in the hallway, out of the corner of her eye.  
“There’s my baby boy now!” she squealed and practically shoved Mrs. Hutchinson out of the way to get to me. My dad ran behind her, and upon reaching me they both hugged me.  
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe!” my mom said, and my dad let go of me.  
“Anthony Edison, what do you have to say for yourself! Running away like that…going to someone else’s house…with Jeff, of all people!” he lectured.  
“William, please! Now is not the time! Look at him, he’s scared half to death! Come on, dear, let’s go home…” my mom cooed.  
“No!” I cried out, pulling away from them. Right about then, Jeff walked down the stairs, shuffling his feet. Dr. Andonuts stomped over towards him and stopped in front of him.  
“No, I can’t go back to Winters! I…I love Jeff too much! Didn’t you even read my note? I said we were leaving to here because we were tired of you guys telling us how to live our lives!” I frantically explained.  
I heard Dr. Andonuts screaming all sorts of expletives, presumably at Jeff, and I glanced in their direction. I’d made eye contact with Jeff for just a second- and the fear, pain and despair in his eyes was plain as day.  
“Mom, just look at them!” I said, gesturing to Dr. Andonuts and Jeff. “You guys are being just as bad as him by preventing us from being together!”  
“Tony, I don’t think you understand. It’s-“ Mom started.  
“Belle, let me handle this. This is too complex for you. I really didn’t think you were ready to start dating. This is the sort of mess I knew you’d get yourself into,” Dad explained. “And like I said before, we were only doing this for your own good- and for Jeff, too.”  
“Well, I knew that Jeffrey would get caught up in this mess because of your son!” I heard Dr. Andonuts scream at Dad.  
“What?!” my dad incredulously said.  
“William-“ my mom started.  
“Just…just take Tony to the car. I’ve got this,” Dad said.  
Neither me nor Mom made a move. I really wanted to see Dad tell off Dr. Andonuts, and something tells me Mom felt the same way.  
“I knew that son of yours was a no-good troublemaker! First he’s kissing boys, next he pressured my son into going with him and doing God-knows-what kind of horrible things here with Ness. Well, we’re having no more of that! I’m going to get a restraining order taken out on each and every one of you Edisons when we get back to Winters!” Dr. Andonuts had turned all purple in the face like he did when he caught Jeff kissing me so long ago. “It’s one thing if your son wants to be unnatural and perverted, but mine’s not-“  
“Okay, Steve,” Dad growled. “I’ve had about enough of you insulting my son. How would you like it if some idiot off the streets ran in and started insulting yours? If he made it so your hands were tied and you couldn’t do anything to make your son happy? Oh, no, you don’t know what that feels like. But I do! I’m tired of seeing Tony cry, and it’s all your fault! He’d tell you that for sure, and I bet you money if you asked Jeff what he thought, he’d be upset with you too! It’s one thing if you’re homophobic- it’s a little offensive, but I can live with it- but it’s another thing entirely if you go so far as to insult my family!”  
Somewhere behind Dr. Andonuts, Ness started clapping. “Yeah! You tell him, Tony’s dad!”  
Ness’s mom ran over to him and started whispering something to him.  
“See? Your son even poisoned that innocent child with his bad culture!” Dr. Andonuts exclaimed.   
“Now, this is ridiculous!” Dad cried out. “I just got through telling you to stop insulting Tony, and you just had to make one more little comment about him!”  
“Stop!” I cried out. Dad and Dr. Andonuts looked at me, annoyed. “Didn’t you ever think to stop and ask me and Jeff first? It’s like you think our opinions don’t matter. One thing’s for sure- Jeff loves me, I love him and that’s that. Dad, you’re never going to get Dr. Andonuts to think like you, and Dr. Andonuts, you’re not going to get anything accomplished by belittling me- all you’re doing is making both me and my dad mad.”  
“He doesn’t love you! You were just being a bad influence on him! You filled his head with your immoral ideals, but he doesn’t love you! He can’t like boys!” Dr. Andonuts boomed, stomping over towards me.  
“Dad, stop!” Jeff cried. “He’s right! … I do love him. I’m gay, and there’s nothing you can do about it! Just leave Tony alone! We’ll go back to Winters and it’ll all be okay if you can just get it out of your head that’s there’s something wrong with a boy liking other boys. But you’re the one who’s preventing that. You can’t seem to grasp the concept that there’s nothing morally wrong about it. It’s just you fooling yourself because that’s all you know and you think everyone has to think and act like you or they’re ‘wrong’. Why do you have to be so…so…ignorant?”  
Dr Andonuts rushed over and slapped Jeff square in the mouth. “You are not to talk back to me like that. Is that clear, Jeffrey?” Dr. Andonuts chastised.   
“It’s not talking back, it’s the truth!” Jeff cried.  
“What did I just say, boy? Not two seconds ago I told you to quit talking back, and you pop off and sass me again!” Dr. Andonuts yelled. He reared back to slap him again, but my mom spoke up.  
“Steven, just listen to your son! He’s totally right about all of that. It’s perfectly okay to be gay, and there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with Tony!” She put her arm around me.  
“Belle, Belle…I thought you were the sensible one, but it turns out you’re just as delusional as your kid and all the other hippies like you!” Dr. Andonuts said.  
“Hippies?!” my dad gasped.  
“I know it’s an awful time, but I’m really mad about what you’ve been saying!” Mrs. Hutchinson chimed in. “You don’t understand at all. My sister, Marissa, came out to our parents about 10 years ago, and they reacted exactly like you did! When they met her girlfriend Susan, they actually threw both of them out of the house and told them that if they were going to be like that they might as well move to Summers. They kept on belittling Marissa and Susan, and 2 years later, Marissa…she…she committed suicide because she couldn’t take it anymore.” Mrs. Hutchinson’s voice broke. “It was a huge upset in our whole family. I remember little Ness, just looking up at me and saying…saying…he said ‘Mama, when’s Aunt Marissa coming back?’ and it broke my heart to tell him the awful truth! Susan ended up moving to Summers, just like Mom and Dad said. But losing one of their daughters completely changed their point of view. It was a huge wake-up call for both of them. And…and from the moment I first met Jeff and Tony and heard their story, I was taken aback by how similar it was to the situation with Marissa and Susan. I don’t want that to happen to either of those boys, Dr. Andonuts. Please, for your son’s own good, and Tony’s too, let off of them a little!”  
I hugged Mrs. Hutchinson. Ness gave her a tissue and also hugged her.   
“That’s…that’s terrible!” my mom said.  
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Dad reassured her.  
Dr. Andonuts awkwardly stood there, unsure whether to be mad or empathetic. “Well…I’m sorry to hear that…but…” he muttered.  
“Dad! That didn’t teach you anything?!” Jeff incredulously asked. “The moral of the story was supposed to be that trying to dictate who someone loves can have disastrous consequences! Just let us both be ourselves! What is so hard about that!?”  
Apparently Dr. Andonuts had decided to completely forget about the anecdote Mrs. Hutchinson had shared. “But that’s not you. That’s not you at all! I know you’re normal. And besides, you don’t understand that-” he reprimanded.  
“No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand! I already told you a million times- I like boys, and that’s that!” Jeff cried. “You don’t realize that I would have found out another way even if Tony hadn’t kissed me on the roof that day! That was-“  
“He’s kissed you before I caught you that one time?” Dr. Andonuts said in disbelief, and shook his head. “It’s happening already. Don’t you know that this is a slippery slope? It goes for both of you boys. One day you’re kissing boys, then the next thing you know you’re skipping school and doing drugs!”  
I could feel my anger growing by the second. I stopped consoling Ness and Mrs. Hutchinson and turned to Dr. Andonuts, my teeth gritted.  
“I don’t know if I can still call you my son after this. It’s one thing if Tony wants to be deviant, but I can’t let you do that.” Dr. Andonuts went on.   
I couldn’t take it another second. I grabbed the object nearest to me- which happened to be a stuffed bunny, supposed to serve as a chew toy for King.  
“Snap out of it!” I shouted, and hit Dr. Andonuts in the side of the head with the bunny as hard as I could. I’d been wanting to do that to him for some time now- not necessarily with a stuffed bunny in my hand, but it worked just as well. “If you won’t accept the way we both are, we’re not going to go back to Winters!”  
“Yeah! What he said!” Jeff agreed.  
“Apparently your parents didn’t teach you not to disrespect your elders! I thought you were just a deviant, but now I see that you’re a spoiled brat as well!” Dr. Andonuts yelled.   
I hit him with the bunny again. “I respect my elders if they respect me as a human being! No way am I listening to you, Dr. Demon!” I said. If he wanted bratty, he was going to get it. I stuck my tongue out at him.  
“You’ve gotten a bit big for your britches, haven’t you? It’s clear as day why I wouldn’t want this boy around my son!” Dr. Andonuts said, directing the last part of his sentence at my parents.  
“I’m sorry to let you down, but I think you deserved to get hit with that stuffed animal,” my dad stated.   
“Absolutely,” my mom said. “If you’re expecting me to punish him, then you must be completely and 100% out of your mind.”  
Jeff took the bunny from my hand and hit Dr. Andonuts with it.  
“What did I just say?!” Dr. Andonuts roared.  
“Dad, I want you to listen to me, and listen well: I’ve been ashamed to be seen with you in public due to your intense homophobia. I still remember that when I was 3, you made us move to another house because these two women, who were in a relationship, moved in next door to us! Every time you see two people of the same sex holding hands on the sidewalk, you always run over and yell at them and I have to stand there and pretend I don’t exist! I can’t understand why you’re like that, and how you could be so insensitive! But here’s the point: If you keep on not respecting the way Tony and I are…I’ll lose all respect for you. You said you can’t still call me your son- in that case, I can’t still call you my father.” Jeff explained. Dr. Andonuts’s eyes widened. “You said I should stand up for myself if the kids at school made fun of me or what I believed in- that I shouldn’t let them tell me how to feel. That’s exactly what you’re doing to me! You’re being a real bully, Dad. And I’m not sassing you. I’m standing up for myself. And Tony, too. Because I’m not delusional- I really do love him.”  
It was quiet for almost a full minute before Dr. Andonuts leaned down to eye level with Jeff, and gave him a hug. “Jeff…I…I’m sorry…” he said. “I’m an old man. And it’s not easy for me to grasp new concepts. It’s just…I’m from a much more conservative generation. My parents always told me that that was the way I had to be. They drilled it so hard into my head that homosexuality was morally wrong that I…well, I went overboard. And what’s more…I… I’ve hurt my own son in the process. I promised myself I’d never make you upset, and I did. I don’t know if it’s possible to apologize enough,” he said. “I’m so, so, so sorry.”  
“It’s okay,” Jeff said, and patted Dr. Andonuts on the back.  
“No, Jeff. It’s not okay. Very, very, very not okay. It’s not okay for me to…to be… to make you my puppet…or whatever that was I was doing. All I know is that it was absolutely despicable behavior. Terrible. Beyond terrible, really.” He stood up and turned to me. “And Tony, I…I do hope that you’ll be able to forgive me for all I said. All that bad stuff I said to you…I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t think I can apologize enough to you, either. I’m sorry for belittling you, and…and I’m sorry for keeping the two of you apart.”   
Jeff and I looked at each other, both with expressions of pleased surprise.   
“That’s right. I know you were expecting me to keep thinking you two shouldn’t be together, but…but Jeff showed me what a monster I was being. Again, I am so sorry…sorry beyond being able to verbally apologize. Jeff, you should be able to love who you want, so from now on, you can date who you wish. I’ll only say something if it seems like she- or he- is trying to hurt you in some way. I’ve made a promise to be less judgemental, to be a better person, and above all, a better father.” Dr. Andonuts declared. He turned to me. “I’m very, very pleased to allow you to date my son. I’d rather it be you than anyone else in the universe.”  
Jeff hugged me. “I can’t believe it! This is really happening!” he squealed in delight.   
“Now, what do you say you go get your stuff together so we can go back home?” Dr. Andonuts asked.  
“Okay, sounds good!” Jeff ran up the stairwell.   
“Wait for me!” Ness cried out.   
I ran up after both of them.  
When I got up there, I quickly rounded up all my clothes and the other things I’d brought with me, and Jeff did the same. We confidently walked down the stairs together.  
“Are you ready to go?” my mom asked.  
“Almost,” I said, and turned to Jeff. “Even though the reason we came here wasn’t very good, I still had fun being here with you and getting to see Onett, and meet Ness.”  
“Yeah, same here,” Jeff said.  
I kissed him on the cheek. “Love you,” I said, and turned to leave, but I heard Ness calling after me.  
“Hey! Don’t leave without saying bye!” he called out.  
“Okay…bye, Ness. Thanks for letting us come over,” I said.  
“What kind of goodbye is that?” Ness ran up and gave me a hug. “It was great to have you as a guest! Hopefully you can come back sometime!” He let go of me and did the same to Jeff.  
“Bye…I’m kind of going to miss you. It was really fun getting to stay here,” Jeff said.  
“Hey, cheer up, Jeff! At least you won’t have to eat Mrs. Minch’s roadkill chowder again!” Ness said, and the three of us laughed knowingly.  
“Ness!” Mrs. Hutchinson exclaimed, and then started laughing herself.  
“You also won’t have to go back to Pokey’s house…or have to deal with what happens when my mom makes Pokey come over here…or have him eat all your pizza when you get up to change the channel on the TV…Dr. Andonuts, wait!!” Ness said, then chased after Dr. Andonuts as he and Jeff walked up the sidewalk.  
Dr. Andonuts turned around.  
“Please take me back to Winters with you! Just for a few days, please!” Ness begged. “I promise I’ll be good, and I won’t use my powers unless I have to, and I won’t ask you to make steak more than once! …Okay, make that twice… or three times… Please?” Mrs. Hutchinson had walked onto the front porch, and started laughing a little. Ness turned around to face her.  
“Please, Mom? Ooh, maybe we could both go there! And we could take an airplane there together, and go sight-seeing! I wanna get a picture of Tessie, and maybe meet the Chancellor of Winters!” Ness asked.   
“I’m afraid not right away. We won’t really have the time for a trip like that for a while. But maybe we could arrange for you to stay a weekend there with Jeff or something. We’re not going to make any plans immediately, though. It’s awfully late- and speaking of which, you’d better get to bed so you can get up early! We’re going to visit your father in Fourside tomorrow!” Mrs. Hutchinson said.  
“Aw, Mom!” Ness groaned. “Well…It’s worth it to see Dad though!” With that, he went upstairs.  
“Thank you so much for letting them come over. And…again, I have to thank you for convincing Dr. Andonuts to change his mind.” Mom said.  
“You’re welcome, but I didn’t convince Dr. Andonuts of anything. That was all Jeff,” Mrs. Hutchinson explained.   
“Well, I personally think it was pretty helpful,” Dad added. “After he heard what you said his heart really didn’t seem to be in what he was saying. Again, I am so, so sorry for your loss.”  
“Thank you. Anyway, you guys have a nice night and a safe trip,” Mrs. Hutchinson said.  
My parents said goodbye, and I waved goodbye to Mrs. Hutchinson before she closed the door.  
I got in the back seat of the car, put my stuff on the seat next to me, and ended up falling asleep just as we’d driven into Twoson.  
My mom woke me up once we’d arrived back home. “Tony, wake up,” she said, gently shaking my shoulder. “We’re back. Once you get inside you can go back to sleep.”  
“I know I sure will,” Dad commented, picking up my suitcase and yawning loudly.  
I picked up the last few things I’d brought with me, trudged inside, dropped my stuff on the floor of my room and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.   
The next morning, when I woke up, the smell of pancakes, bacon and coffee wafted into my room.   
“Good morning,” my mom greeted me with a hug. “Breakfast is just about ready. Come on into the dining room.”  
I went into the dining room, and who was in there but Jeff and Dr. Andonuts??   
“Tony!” Jeff ran up and hugged me, kissing me on the cheek. “You’re finally up.”   
I looked over at Dr. Andonuts, in time to see his brows unfurrowing and him smiling at us.  
“I decided that the best way to let bygones be bygones is to invite them over for breakfast with us. I figured you wouldn’t have a problem with that at all,” Dad said.   
“Of course I don’t have a problem with that!” I laughed and put my arm around Jeff’s shoulders.   
“Breakfast is served!” my mom called out from the kitchen. “Come and get it while it’s hot.”  
As I piled bacon and blueberry pancakes onto my plate and looked around- at Jeff struggling to open the maple syrup bottle, at my mom sitting at the table across from Dad and Dr. Andonuts, who were excitedly talking about a gizmo that Dr. Andonuts had brought with him, I sighed contentedly. Everything had lined up perfectly to lead up to this one moment- a scene that I had never pictured would have been possible before now! And looking over at Jeff, who’d finally gotten the syrup bottle open, and the wonder in his eyes, something tells me he was thinking the exact same thing I was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this! I don't know why I waited 5 years to publish it (lol it's actually 5 years to the day I just realized!! I finished it on June 25 in 2015 and have only just been occasionally fixing typos before finally posting it. That's such a weird coincidence) but I'm glad I finally did. Hopefully soon I'll write more fanfics and be able to share them here.


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